Skilled Dialogue: Authentic Communication and Collaboration Across Diverse Perspectives

Copyright © 2017 Isaura Barrera, Ph.D. & Lucinda Kramer, Ph.D.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-8545-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-8546-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017912222

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/29/2017

Contents

PART I: DIFFERENCES

Introduction

Chapter 1 Diversity

Chapter 2 Paradox

Chapter 3 Dialogue and Skilled Dialogue

PART II: SKILLED DIALOGUE ELEMENTS

Chapter 4 Skilled Dialogue Dispositions: Leveraging the Power of the Other and the Power of Paradox

Chapter 5 Honoring Identity through the Strategies of Welcoming and Allowing

Chapter 6 Establishing Reciprocity through Sense-making and Appreciating

Chapter 7 Being Responsive: Joining and Harmonizing

PART III: PRACTICE

Chapter 8 Getting the Hang of Paradox and ³rd Space

Chapter 9 Getting the Hang of Skilled Dialogue Strategies

Chapter 10 Putting It All Together

Chapter 11 Skilled Dialogue Forms

PART I:

DIFFERENCES

Introduction

Whether intriguing, frustrating, challenging or even threatening, the challenges that diversity can pose for communication and collaboration are difficult to ignore or deny. These challenges, however, need not be negative ones. They can in fact offer incredible opportunities for positive communication and collaboration.

Growing up on the Texas-Mexico border I (Barrera) learned this aspect of diversity’s challenges at an early age. By the age of six I needed to learn a new language and a new set of behaviors for success at school while retaining the language and behaviors I knew for negotiating life in my home border community. I saw the consequences when this challenge was perceived negatively as one that presented the choice of one language and set of behaviors at the expense of the other. It did not take long for me to realize that perceiving differences in this either-or fashion, neither minding them properly nor mining them appropriately, resulted in separation and division rather than inclusion and unity. It has since become increasingly clear that placing differences in separate and contradictory categories severely limits both communication and collaboration.

The premise of Skilled Dialogue, the topic of this text, is a straightforward one: that to communicate and collaborate optimally across diverse perspectives it is necessary to tap into the power of the other (Cloud, 2016); i.e., what the other brings to the interaction, as well as into the power of paradox; i.e., how differences can be additive rather than subtractive. In general, the power of the other tends to remain largely unacknowledged or to be acknowledged only negatively. The power of paradox similarly remains largely untapped. Yet, when both of these powers are tapped, collaboration and communication can occur even in situations where they are believed to be impossible.

Significant disruptions in our ability to communicate and collaborate meaningfully with those who think, act or believe differently from us are being increasingly evidenced today. They are occurring not only on a global scale between countries and cultures, they are also becoming increasingly apparent on the smaller scale of everyday personal and professional interactions.

Apparently, it is not only becoming more challenging to communicate and collaborate across different perspectives, it is also becoming difficult to even hear different perspectives. In a 3/10/14 blog posting, Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, made the following striking observation regarding a university’s disinvitation of commencement speakers because of their views on particular issues: freedom of speech and academic freedom depend on our ability to handle hearing opinions we dislike and constructively and creatively engaging with those opinions.¹ This ability to handle hearing differing opinions is critical. It is needed far beyond the freedom of speech and academic freedom. It is needed for our own welfare, the welfare of others, and of the earth itself. Without it, diversity of perspectives will continue to separate and divide us, impoverishing the communication and collaboration necessary to protect and promote that welfare.

Our own experiences as developers and trainers of Skilled Dialogue reflect this growing disruption in people’s abilities to communicate meaningfully and craft productive collaborations with those who think, act or believe differently. Participants who came to our early workshops and professional development sessions on Skilled Dialogue to learn about using Skilled Dialogue with culturally diverse families and co-workers almost always ended up asking how they could apply it to situations with families, friends, neighbors and co-workers. The latter were not at all culturally diverse yet our workshop participants still experienced significant difficulty communicating and collaborating with them because of their diverse opinions, behaviors and values.

Skilled Dialogue is a proactive tool for converting diversity from challenge to opportunity; i.e., for mining and minding its riches. It is a field-tested approach designed to tap into and leverage the power of the other and the power of paradox. Through Skilled Dialogue interactions with diverse others can be crafted in ways that allow differences to enrich rather than limit available options and opportunities (Barrera, I., Corso, R., & Macpherson, D., 2003; Barrera, I., Kramer, L., & Macpherson, D., 2012; Barrera, I. & Kramer, L., 2009).

Overview of Content

Part I of this text (Chapters 1-3) sets the context for Skilled Dialogue by providing foundational information on three topics: diversity, paradox, and dialogue. Chapter 1 addresses diversity as a relational and comparative reality that exists between individuals rather than as a static reality within individuals’ identities (e.g., cultural, gender, sexual orientation). Two aspects of diversity understood in this wider sense are discussed: the type of differences involved and the type of responses to those differences.

Chapter 2 extends the discussion of diversity by introducing the concept of paradox, the phenomenon of two or more apparently contradictory realities being simultaneously true. Ellinor and Gerard (2014, Kindle Loc. 1503) posed the question As the world speeds up and the [multiplicity of diverse perspectives] becomes more and more obvious, how [can] we hold multiple viewpoints and still move ahead with aligned action? Skilled Dialogue actively seeks to create an interactional space within which multiple viewpoints can be aligned so as to promote optimum communication and collaboration. Learning to think paradoxically is essential to the creation of such space because, without paradoxical thinking, diversity’s contrasts all too easily deteriorate into a one right answer frame of mind able to create only either-or contradictions that privilege one view over another. When perceived through the lens of paradox, however, these same contradictions can be understood as mutually complementary contrasts, without need for forced choice between them. They can then be given equal voice and, consequently, mined for their riches in a collaborative context.

Part I culminates with Chapter 3. In this chapter, the authors first discuss the purpose and form of dialogue as a process grounded in a particular understanding of both diversity and paradox. They identify the characteristics of dialogue and contrast them with those associated with other interactional approaches. Skilled Dialogue is then addressed more specifically as each of its primary elements is discussed: qualities, dispositions and strategies. This discussion lays the groundwork for the more detailed discussion of these elements in Part II.

Part II (Chapters 4-7) focuses specifically on the Skilled Dialogue elements, starting with a description of its dispositions in Chapter 4. It first addresses how the first disposition, Choosing Relationship over Control, capitalizes on tapping into the power of the other (Cloud, 2016) by intentionally connecting individuals’ perspectives in ways that (a) honor identities and voices no matter how diverse, (b) establish reciprocity so that those identities and voices can be expressed, and (c) promote responsiveness. Setting the Stage for Miracles, Skilled Dialogue’s second and complementary disposition, is then addressed. This disposition capitalizes on the power of paradox and the interconnectedness of knowledge (Anderson, 2016). It involves the willingness to suspend preset agendas in order to better listen for what may lie beyond current understandings; i.e., for what is waiting to emerge (Jaworski, 1996, p. 182).

Together, these two dispositions support the successful implementation of Skilled Dialogue’s six intertwined strategies, which are addressed in Chapters 5-7. (Note: Though discussed in a sequential and linear sequence in these chapters, the strategies are neither in reality. Examples of the interdependence and nonlinearity of the strategies in action are provided in Part III.)

Chapter 5 focuses on Skilled Dialogue’s first two strategies: Welcoming and Allowing. These focus on honoring identity by focusing on affirming and respecting individuals’ identities, however inappropriate or wrong we might perceive or judge them to be, while simultaneously affirming and respecting our own identity.

More specifically, Welcoming’s purpose is to communicate that we look forward to talking with and learning from those with whom we interact. It involves authentically communicating that interaction with another is welcomed as more than just a task to be accomplished. Allowing complements Welcoming. It addresses allowing time for the other to express his/her perspective without interruption or discussion. Its purpose is to communicate our acknowledgment that the other’s voice is valid; i.e., worthy of being expressed.

Sense-making and Appreciating, addressed in Chapter 6, are strategies that typically follow Welcoming and Allowing. Their purpose is to establish a context of reciprocity. Both strategies aim to recognize and affirm the potential contributions diverse perspectives can bring to an interaction. Sense-making accomplishes this by focusing on how an individual’s diverse perspectives are evidence-based and not merely the result of not knowing better, or not knowing the right way, as they are so often unfortunately interpreted. It is a strategy used in seeking to learn how diverse perspectives are valid; i.e., of value within particular contexts. Appreciating is the corollary strategy that then is used to communicate appreciation of those diverse beliefs/behaviors as valued and valuable within the contexts in which they were acquired, though they may admittedly be of little value or even counterproductive outside those contexts. Skilled Dialogue’s subsequent strategies, Joining and Harmonizing, become possible only when we can make sense of another’s diverse beliefs and behaviors and appreciate their value for that