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COPYRIGHT 2005 Western States Communications Association
Many organizational practitioners advocate 'dialogue' as a way of improving communication at work and addressing important organizational issues that seem irresolvable through normal, everyday forms of organizational discourse (Ellinor & Gerard, 1999; Isaacs, 1999; Senge, 1990; Senge, Ross, Smith, Roberts, & Kliener, 1994; Yankelovich, 1999). The most common notion of dialogue present in organizational practice is based on the intellectual foundation of David Bohm (1996), and has been popularized by management consultant and writer Peter Senge and his colleagues (Isaacs, 1999; Senge, 1990; Senge et al., 1994) as part of the operation of a learning organization. Bohm's approach to dialogue can be characterized as epistemological, because it is oriented toward a theory of knowledge. It emphasizes group members' ability to 'think together' (Isaacs, 1999) and 'build meaning' (Bohm, 1996) through collective conversation and provides them with tools to understand their 'mental models' (Senge et al., 1994) and thought processes.
Unlike practitioners, most communication scholars who study dialogue have theoretical conceptions based on more ontological foundations. Although scholarly conceptions of dialogue vary widely (see Anderson, Baxter, & Cissna, 2004; Pearce & Pearce, 2000), much of the academic work on dialogue draws from theorists such as Mikhail Bakhtin (e.g., Barge & Little, 2002; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996) or Martin Buber (e.g., Arnett, 1986; Cissna & Anderson, 1998; Cissna & Anderson, 2002; Stewart & Zediker, 2000), whose theories heavily emphasize notions of what it means to be human and the nature of human relationships.
Some theorists have critiqued Bohm's approach and its popularity in organizational practice. For instance, Deetz and Simpson (2004) are critical of what they call the 'humanist' position on dialogue, including Bohm, which has become the 'everyday life, "native" conception of dialogue' found in corporate classrooms (p. 142). They argue that when such humanist approaches to dialogue are put into practice, the theoretical nuances are lost and thus organizational members' experiences with dialogue are not as fruitful as they could be with different theoretical conceptions of dialogue.
Simiarly, Barge and Little (2002) are critical of Bohm's conception of dialogue as a particular form of 'abnormal discourse' involving collective thinking rather than a form of relational practice (p. 376). They argue that Bohm's approach may result in several 'unintended ironies' (p. 378) such as promoting a fragmented view of communication and relationships, underestimating the extent to which dialogue is interrelated with other forms of communication, and limiting the type of communicative moves that count as dialogic. These ironies stem from the fact that such a conception of dialogue focuses attention on 'ways of thinking collectively versus ways of being with one another' (p. 381). As with Deetz and Simpson (2004), Barge and Little note that practitioners implementing Bohm's approach are well intentioned. However, these scholars are concerned that treating dialogue as a special kind of communication that follows predetermined guidelines can undermine the potential for richer understandings of human connection and meaningfulness.
These critiques of Bohm's conception of dialogue are insightful, and the concerns about dialogue theory and practice are central to this paper. It is possible that critics are correct that the ways Bohm's theories are appropriated in organizational practice lead to significant limitations. However, it is also possible that these scholars' critiques underestimate the complexity of meaningfulness that organizational members experience with dialogue practice. This study investigates organizational members' experience of dialogue through examining one organization's attempts to promote dialogue in the workplace. It presents a case study of a Listening and Dialogue employee-training workshop at a large manufacturing firm that I call The Wesler Company and explores how different theoretical conceptions of dialogue are manifested in participants', instructors', and designers' discourse about their experiences in the workshop.
Alternative Views of Dialogue
In addition to being advocated by organizational practitioners described above, dialogue has also received a great deal of attention in the general communication scholarship (e.g., Anderson, Baxter, & Cissna, 2004; Cissna & Anderson, 1998). The two dialogue theories most relevant to this project are those of David Bohm and Martin Buber. Pearce and Pearce (2000) describe Bohm's approach as the 'largest and best-known tradition of [dialogue] practice' (p. 166), and it is the foundation of the training workshop studied here. Buber, on the other hand, is a dialogue philosopher whose work has influenced much communication scholarship on dialogue (see Cissna & Anderson, 1998, for a review). Both offer what Stewart and Zediker (2000) term 'prescriptive' notions of dialogue, but they come from very different philosophical foundations and have been taken up by different groups of followers. Buber is an appropriate scholar to contrast with Bohm in this project because Buber's emphasis on dialogue as ontology is responsive to some of the concerns raised by critics such as Barge and Little (2002) and Deetz and Simpson (2004).
Dialogue as Epistemology
Bohm's work on dialogue focuses on the ability of groups to 'think together' and build shared understanding as meaning flows through the group (Bohm, 1996). Bohm traces the Greek roots of the word dialogue to dia meaning 'through' and logos, which can be 'meaning' or 'understanding.' Thus, dia-logos, or dialogue, is a way to make meaning through communication. Unlike other, more habitual, types of communication, dialogue, for Bohm, is a way of speaking and listening that allows creative new understandings to 'emerge' through the group's conversation (p. 6). Bohm contrasts dialogue with discussion, which he describes as a way of communicating that emphasizes analysis of ideas and fosters competition between people with different views and assumptions. Bohm compares discussion to ping-pong where 'people are batting the ideas back and forth and the object of the game is to win or to get points for yourself (p. 7). Dialogue, in contrast, is a game where 'there is no attempt to gain points or to make our particular view prevail.... Dialogue is something more of a common participation, in which we are not playing a game against each other, but with each other. In a dialogue, everybody wins' (p. 7).
Bohm was a physicist who became fascinated with what he terms the 'implicate order' of the universe, a wholeness that, he argues, is often overlooked in contemporary science (1980, p. 1). Bohm (1996) states that humans rely too much on fragmentation to make sense of what we perceive, which limits our ability to understand wholeness and connections. What tends to happen, he argues, is that we can start to think that our fragment is the whole, which leads us to hold fast to our positions and discredit people whose views are different from our own. Dialogue is Bohm's (1996) recommendation to address this 'crisis of fragmentation.' Bohm sees dialogue as a communicative ideal. He describes dialogue as emergent, fluid, collaborative, and respectful, and he explains practices and processes to enable dialogue in groups of approximately 12-40 people. These practices teach participants how to 'think together' (Isaacs, 1999).
Dialogue as Ontology
Buber (1923/1970, 1975, 1998) characterizes his project as philosophical anthropology, a study of what it means to be human. He describes humans as having two fundamental ways of being in relation to others, which he calls the primary poles 'I-It' and 'I-Thou.' To experience an other as an 'It' means to understand and treat him or her as an object, not as a human being. The I-It is the foundation for monologue, which is an appropriate way of relating some of the time, but which does not promote and enhance human contact. The alternative way of relating to an other is to meet him or her as a genuine being who is fundamentally different from oneself. This is the relationship of an I to a Thou in which the other is experienced in all of his or her otherness as fully human. The I-Thou relation is the foundation for dialogue (Buber, 1975, 1998).
Buber describes genuine dialogue as 'an ontological sphere which is constituted by the authenticity of being' (1998, p. 76). He emphasizes that dialogue cannot be understood by examining what each individual is thinking or saying. Dialogue is not a psychological phenomenon, claims Buber. It does not exist inside people's heads, but is 'rooted in one being turning to another as an other, as this particular other being, in order to communicate with it in a sphere which is common to them but which reaches out beyond the special sphere of each.' He calls this 'the sphere of the "between"' (1975, p. 203), the oscillating, emergent sphere where true mutuality can occur between people.
According to Buber (1975), dialogue is a particular kind of human contact occurring most often between two people who are mutually present and open to one another. Presentness involves bringing one's 'authentic being' to the conversation. Openness requires an acceptance of the other person as someone who is fundamentally different from oneself. It means being open to being surprised and possibly even changed by the other. 'The chief presupposition for the rise of genuine dialogue is that each should regard his (1) partner as the very one he is. I become aware of him, aware that he is different, essentially different from myself ... and I accept whom I thus see, so that in full earnestness I can direct what I say to him as the...
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