MediaSpace Wiki

Relationships And Communities Session Twelve

Common Ground

• Yankelovich, 47-57
• Stewart, 578-584

• First off, I should note that Yankelovich's book went into print about six months before the current market drop started. The board may be singing a very different tune now.
• Still, there are important lessons here:
  • There are no stupid questions!
    • So called Stupid questions often reveal:
      • the things that we don't know that other people assume we do know
      • the things we are assuming
    • it is often a good place to open dialog
  • Inequality squelches innovative thinking
    • real solutions require people to treat each other as equals, even when they are not
    • we have to exit our programmed roles and enter the role of listener, learner, and thinker.
    • there is no formula for how you do this. Roles are important to maintaining predictable less than I-thou relationships.
    • but dialogue requires that we break out of the normal patterns
  • Empathy matters
    • Never treat a question as stupid
    • Ask yourself why the question seems stupid while you answer it. Sometimes the answer will improve as a result.
  • The trick is to unmask assumptions
    • Most problems are not an issue of what we say
    • So much as a problem of what we have assumed
  • Relationships are an inevitable biproduct of real dialogue.
    • We understand each other better