A Method of Dialogue (Introduction)

For our future to be long and prosperous, our species needs to learn better ways of getting along. Our growing population, along with the steady increase in the pluralization of global culture, is making it impossible to stay inside our provincial bubbles of meaning.

More and more, we are confronted with the differences that characterize our remarkable diversity, but we’re still struggling with how to negotiate these differences and peacefully coexist. The high ideal would be that we develop methods, skills, and practices that will foster genuine community – not only in small pockets of intentional practitioners, but across the planet.

We’ve made some headway, but there’s much work to be done.

In this post and the next four, I will present a method which is highly effective when it comes to working toward resolution – whether it’s reaching agreement on a proposal, building mutual understanding, or resolving conflict between and among ourselves.

The method is based in a therapeutic approach to health and happiness that I’ve been developing for a decade and a half, called Mentallurgy, which helps individuals take creative control inside the ‘mental theater’ of their own brain. It is importantly different from – and much more effective than – both talk therapy and drug therapy (the conventional forms of therapy most common today).

Because the process for dialogue presented here uses many of the same skills introduced in my Braintracts blog, I’m naming it the Mentallurgy Method of Dialogue.

For now we’ll only take a summary overview of the Method in order to get a sense of its process. In subsequent posts I will open up each of its four phases and dig into the details. As the diagram above illustrates, effective dialogue moves through a developing sequence of steps, none of which can be skipped if we truly want to reach resolution (i.e., agreement, understanding, reconciliation, and unity).

We should start by making a critical distinction between dialogue on the one hand, and conversation, discussion, or debate on the other. The latter are either too unstructured (conversation), topic-driven (discussion), or gladiatorial in pressing for a win-lose outcome (debate). Dialogue literally refers to the collaborative process of finding common ground and making meaning in which all partners are invested.

This obviously requires some individual PREPARATION to ensure that dialogue partners come to the table in a creative, resourceful, and optimistic frame of mind. Individuals can’t do this for one another; each is responsible for doing the necessary “work before the work.” It’s common in everyday relationships for us to take a more passive, casual, or reactive role, so this step is essential for the Method to get successfully underway.

With partners thus engaged in the process, the next step of CONSIDERATION can begin to cultivate the conditions in which healthy and productive dialogue takes root. We’ll look more closely at the art of dialogue, in the way it carefully navigates a middle path between urgency and conviction – the Scylla and Charybdis that have wrecked many a ship seeking successful passage to the island paradise of genuine community.

Effective dialogue protects the space where each partner feels safe, welcome, and included.

As partners clarify their common interests and values, DELIBERATION guides them through a simple system of factors that helps focus their work together on a goal that matters to everyone. Built into the term is the idea of balance (Latin līberāre), which speaks to the importance of staying aligned with our desired outcome even as we honestly appraise the serious effort required in getting to what we want, what we may have to give up for its sake, and the possibility of falling short of our goal.

Realistic assessment, rather than starry-eyed wishful thinking, is intrinsic to the dialogical process. This careful balance of work, cost, and risk in pursuit of what we hope to gain by reaching our goal is the basic calculus of success.

RESOLUTION is where partners come to agreement, understanding, and reconciliation around the matter of concern. The goal that was clarified during the deliberation phase might still lie in the future, but there is now a shared commitment to its realization. This distinction between project (a future objective) and process (an organic unfolding) is what makes dialogue different from a mere strategy meeting.

Partners may well leave with specific task assignments, but the true resolution is a transformation by which separate individuals are lifted into the higher wholeness of genuine community.

These four steps or phases in the process of creative dialogue together comprise a method that can help move us into a more peaceful and prosperous future. In coming posts we’ll look deeper into each phase, arriving eventually at a full understanding of how we can flourish together, and not merely get along.