Posts Tagged ‘dialogue’
On Being: One Shining Moment for Talk
Krista Tippet, David Gushee and Frances Kissling
On Being recently broadcast a 51 minute conversation entitled Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Dialogue. The recording includes a bunch of great moments and thoughts about communication and conversation as David Gushee and Francis Kissling each have their say and then tell what they’ve gained from the other side of this deeply divided topic.
I need to listen to the entire conversation again.
But toward the end of there was a moment where Ms. Tippet asked about the paradox of passionately clinging to what you know is true even as you reach out to understand what your opponent/conversation partner says/thinks/feels. There is a growth that happens, a change. It is not a giving away of passion or the rightness of the cause, but a deep concern that emerges. Here’s Mr. Gushee:
…after the Princeton conference in 2010 I felt clearer [about the] the position I had going…. But also I was more clear about the intelligence and the love that motivated the people on the other side too. And I respected that…. (~43:30 to 44:01)
There is a mistaken fear about dialogue that says if I engage with another person who does not believe like I believe, I run the risk of losing what I believe. But most people find the opposite to be true: passion grows deeper and something else is added: an understanding care about the other person. The passionate divide may remain, but surrounding that divide is care for another. And that begins to change everything.
This seems to me a shining moment.
A moment many of us could pursue.
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Ray Becoskie: The Solution Should Always Have a Flag
Because There’s a Pistol in Her Purse
More Art-A-Whirl aftershock.
A few days back I wrote about Cody Kisel’s vision for consumerists. On that same floor of the massive Northup King Building, I had a hard time tearing away from Ray Becoskie’s paintings. Mr. Becoskie’s work transmits a wry humor and a fair amount of joy along with the puzzle of his titles.
The Solution Should Always Have a Flag
Here’s Becoskie on his process:
The work is generally constructed from three things. Things I know, things I believe, and things I make up. I get them all together in a room and I do my best to document the conversation that happens.
Like the Librarian Said
Because There’s a Pistol in Her Purse
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Image credit: Ray Becoskie
How to Hack the Bully’s Monologue (Dummy’s Guide to Conversation #16)
Resist the rhetoric of control
Every person has worth. Every person has something meaningful to communicate to us and vice versa.
But sometimes the guy in the corner office just wants to yank your chain. Sometimes your colleague comes in your cube too close and berates you for something that riles only her. And sometimes these work contexts make you question your worth. Today we call this bullying and officially frown on it, though bosses of all stripes let their primordial managers get away with it as long as they post results.
In the face of the bully’s monologue, we may need to set down our goals of understanding and hearing each other. We may need to pick up tools that will help protect us from the bully. And especially as our culture talks more about innovation, we must recognize that the enemy of innovation is the bully who uses monologue to quell thinking and drive over dissent.
- The hack begins with dropping sycophancy. Just because the VP of marketing is telling you a personal story about his cabin doesn’t mean he isn’t trying to put you in the low place he wants you. There’s no need to continue to play the prop: the underling enamored by all the person in power does.
- Be present. Don’t go to the Bahamas while the bully drives his verbal tank into position.
- Stand. Even if sitting, assume a mentally poised place to challenge.
- Challenge. Is there another way of looking at the perspective the bully shouts? What is the truth here? Speaking fast and loud does not make something true.
- Know two things
- You are a person, too. A person of value.
- That language can be encouraging or damaging. Every communication encounter has a shaping effect on both conversation partners. Don’t let the bully continue unchecked.
- Turn the other cheek. Yes: quite. Back to Jesus the Christ who knew something about handling the bully. He knew the most effective thing long-term was to offer the bully even more. Not in every case, but dealing with the bully from a place of peace and, yes—faith (in God)—may just cut power to the BS generator the bully madly operates. This counter-intuitive step holds much promise for moving forward as a human.
Some reading this may think no modern/post-modern workplace has bullies like this. You could not be more wrong. It is interesting that the tools used to shine a light on the bully’s madness are also effective in ordinary conversations.
How do you handle the bully’s monologues?
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Image credit: Used with permission from Paul Rivoche via 2headedsnake
Stuffing Spinach and How Engagement Takes a Lifetime
Not page hits or likes, though comments get closer to true engagement
Anybody who has tried to communicate a message knows it takes time, effort and budget. Or if not budget, patience and persistence. But budget helps.
Our writers know this. Louise Erdrich in a recent talk at Concordia University about her National Book Award-winning “The Roundhouse” talked about how she incorporated themes that were important to her in a way that would still be read by readers:
“As a writer, I want to get this message across. But I’ll only do it if it is a suspense novel. I wanted to make a book that you could not put down.”
“And then I would stuff in the jurisdictional legal issues like spinach in a sandwich.”
Spinach stuffed in so you hardly realize it’s there. To get her message across, she had to write a story so compelling that a reader would willingly read on.
Today we talk constantly about apps and software and sites and techniques that allow a brand to engage with consumers. Paul Dunay writing for Forbes wonders if engagement advertising is the future of brand advertising. He thinks we are approaching a fundamental shift in brands talking with, not just at consumers. Dunay named innovative companies already pursuing dialogue over monologue using mobile platforms. Of course, we’ve been thinking about dialogue over monologue for quite a few years, but just now we’re starting to see technology that enables monologue with more ease and simplicity.
But it’s more than technology, of course. It is a firm’s willingness to listen. Listening is on the uptick. Listening is the new thing (which is so absurd it makes me laugh). It’s new because companies realize they left money on the table by constant monologue.
But getting people to care about the stuff you think is important: it’s the writer’s problem. It’s the brand’s problem. Both want to engage to such an extent that one actually takes action. Erdrich wants her readers to do something. Dunay wants to make it easier for all of us to buy the stuff we are thinking of right now.
I argue engagement takes a lifetime.
No brand manager wants to hear this, but writers in it for the long haul know this instinctively. They know they have to write to engage and inform, but engagement comes first. Teachers know this as well. Brands and their managers have yet to learn this. That’s because most engagement strategies still put the brand first, not what’s best for the consumer (though consumer need and desire rank high in engagement messaging). Those brands that have begun to succeed are learning to well, shut up and stuff the spinach inside.
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Image credit: Street art by Nuxuno Xan via 2headedsnake
Chuck Hagel: Rogue Defense Conversationalist?
Quick: Put this guy in charge before he goes back on script
Phil Stewart writing for Reuters today caught the newly confirmed Secretary of Defense in an unguarded moment. In that moment—behold—candor:
“We can’t dictate to the world. But we must engage the world. We must lead with our allies,” Hagel said in what appeared to be unscripted remarks.
It sounds like Stewart was caught off-guard as well, but maybe he should not have been, given Hagel’s record and further comments quoted.
This seems like a positive development to me. Let’s quickly put Hagel to work before he reads and signs on to our usual defense script—maybe he can work out that dialogue before anyone realizes what’s going on.
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Image credit: Reuters
The Etiquettes of Therapy/Religion/Business
When must we say “No!” to etiquette?
We don’t talk in elevators. Many of us avoid taking a cell phone call in a restaurant. We don’t use church language at work. And we don’t use plumbing words at church (those words that come with a pipe wrench in hand and head under a sink—according to Steve Treichler). We observe all sorts of behavior habits and patterns from day to day, all of which we call “etiquette.”
In Encountering the Sacred in Psychotherapy (Guildford Press, 2002), James and Melissa Griffith attempt to bridge a taboo of talking about God with clients in their psychotherapy practice. As you may or may not know, conversation is key therapeutic tool and Griffith and Griffith believe therapists too easily dismiss a powerful ingredient when they don’t allow for stories of how people’s faith effects whatever is the topic of therapy. The caveat is that Griffith and Griffith have opened themselves to hear all sorts of faith stories—not just those they might have considered orthodox. The two therapists tell of their own journey toward openness to the varieties of ways patients tell personal stories. By the way: let the record show that openness to hear the wide variety of things our conversation partners say is not the same as giving up on our deep-seated beliefs. We too often confuse openness with wishy-washy. Not the same.
I was initially attracted to the Griffith and Griffith book because of the details they reveal about conversations: how to help each other talk, the amazing nature of a simple conversation, and the mechanisms of speaking that prove so healing. Along the way I’ve come to realize they’ve done something substantial by breaking down a Berlin wall between problems and potential solutions (though perhaps psychotherapy practices have changed quite a bit since 2002).
Over the years I’ve found that colleagues at work will talk about all sorts of stuff in the course of a day, from money to sex to faith to the Twins to the boss to marriage and kids—plus everything else. This is to be encouraged—this flow of words is both natural and cathartic. It’s all about encouraging relationships (which are the primary source of joy for many at work) and work talk routinely breaks across walls of etiquette.
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Image credit: fredrikrattzen via 2headedsnake
Dummy’s Guide to Conversation #14: Please Say More
How To Be A Verbal Philanthropist
I always like it in the classroom when the professor says to the student, “Please say more about….” It is a sign of active listening, a phrase which pulls the reluctant student further into the conversation.
“Please say more” is irresistible in its eagerness to hear more of a person’s thinking or reaction or opinion. It is also a demonstration that people and their thoughts and ideas are important. And it is a crazy generous way to engage in conversation. Generous because by nature we rush to fill the space between someone else’s words with our own thoughts.
When someone says to me “Please say more” I feel honored and free and engaged—almost like having been given a gift.
Being a verbal philanthropist doesn’t cost much—just your attention.
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Image credit: Neil Swaab via 2headedsnake
You might also like:
- Listen Up: #2 in the Dummy’s Guide to Conversation
- Listen to Other People’s Stuff:: #6 in the Dummy’s Guide to Conversation
Don’t Bother Me, I’m Busy Talking to Myself
Just because you have a budget doesn’t mean you know what you’re talking about
I just finished with a client who refused to take direction.
What’s that? You think a consultant should not give direction to a client? You could not be more wrong. That’s exactly what a good consultant does. It’s just that a consultant’s direction doesn’t look like orders or demands. A consultant’s direction looks like alternatives to the usual and invisible way of doing things.
Sometimes we need help seeing what is right before us. We are soaked in teams that are steeped in detail that is loaded with the talk that just circulates between people in the know. This adds up to a set of increasingly narrow word choices that are interesting only to the team. Those words sound like gibberish to anyone on the outside.
My client continued to talk in the insider terms only they understood. And they would not be dissuaded. In the end, they approved copy that ensured no one outside their little circle would understand.
Which feels like failure to me.
This doesn’t happen often, but it’s a bummer when it does. And it makes me think again about how complicated communication is, and why it is so important to start talking earlier rather than later. And why it is critically important that we pull our head out of the huddle from time to time.
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Image credit: killythirsk via 2headedsnake
Guns and Talk: Is It Possible for the U.S. to Become Self-Aware?
Our Home-Grown Version of the Mohammed Cartoon
Not so many years ago a Danish newspaper took on a critique of Islam and self-censorship. It accomplished this with a set of 12 editorial cartoons, which enraged many—so much so that riots erupted across the globe. Cartoon depictions of Mohammed are considered blasphemous by many.
In the US, we tend to applaud most any exercise of free speech. It is a right we cherish. Except when it comes to guns. When The Journal News recently published data locating pistol permit holders in two counties in New York, the sound of lock and load replaced the applause.
So the publisher of The Journal News hired armed guards. Janet Hasson told the New York Times, “The safety of my staff is my top priority.”
To any who laughed off the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy saying it could not happen here, think again.
When will talk become unsafe in this country? When will the second amendment take aim at the first?
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Image credit: The Journal News
What is Remarkable—in Your Industry?
Connect the Dots for Your Clients and their Customers
Over at the Same Rowdy Crowd, Joe Loveland wrote about the best and worst of the Blogosphere. One of the points Loveland made is that the blogosphere is less about creating and more about aggregating. Nothing new there: we’re all curators today. But in aggregating, we are also connecting the dots for ourselves and for each other. This actually is a value-add: because I get to see how you are thinking about life today. Which also points to the ephemeral side of social media. Like tweets, blog posts are mostly of the moment. Meant to be read and discarded, much like verbal conversation: as we announce something, it is gone. That is the nature of sound.
Blogging and tweeting (and etc.) are simply tools of remarking. My working definition of “remarkable” is that a thing is remarkable when I choose to tell someone about it. Bear with me: there’s more to this. If I remark on something to someone, I think they’ll care. And I think they will find it interesting. I won’t remark on something to a friend if I think they’ll not care or if I think they will find it boring (like my 10-year-old friend thought me yesterday).
So the work of social media, in many ways, is that of connecting the dots by remarking on things we think people—our audiences—will find interesting. And along the way we show our expertise (or reveal our shallowness) even as we invite our audiences to think with us about one slivery facet of a topic. One small thing. One small thing that is of today.
It is this one small thing, this one slivery particular that has the power to pull in the outsider. This is because we can become fascinated by the inner workings of someone else’s world. It is the momentary pulling aside of the curtain that both reveals what is inside and draws others in.
Over at Clarity Coverdale Fury they are running a series of posts on the conscious consumer. Rob Rankin remarked about how his wife rented a dress for a Christmas party rather than buying one. He called the organization she used the “Netflix of fashion” and went on to hint at how this model of commerce will intrude into yet another industry. That is interesting and remarkable and a nice connection for most any audience.
One challenge of communication today has to do with finding those remarkable things you can share with insiders—and industry outsiders—which they will find interesting. It’s a language challenge. And a focus challenge. But since the days of monologue and the bully pulpit are long gone, this is our invitation.
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Image credit: via Frank T. Zumbachs Mysterious World
conversation is an engine 