1. National Dialogue Community of Practice
31st May 2017

2. Welcome Agenda Housekeeping

3. Objectives
Update you on recent developments: Core Concepts Training; Facilitator Training; Formation of Practice Groups; Practice Group Guidance; National Events; Research
Experience being in dialogue together about issues that matter
Explore how outcomes from dialogue can be captured, evaluated and shared and enquire into the potential for dialogue to enable change in the system
Share stories and identify case studies that can be used to encourage the integration of dialogue into everyday leadership practice

4. Some Groundrules for Dialogue
All dialogue participants speak for themselves, not as representatives of groups, organisations or special interests
Treat everyone in the dialogue as an equal: leave role, status and stereotypes at the door
Listen with empathy to the views of others
Be open and listen to others even (especially) when you disagree; resist the temptation to rush to judgement
Search for assumptions ( including your own)
Look for common ground
All points of view deserve respect
Avoid conversations out of the room
Adapted from Meredith, Rosell, Davis

5. Check in Everyone’s voice in the room
Popcorn rather than creeping death
Speak from ‘I’ rather than ‘we’ or ‘they’
Avoid rehearsals

6. Creating a Practice Group
Practice Group Facilitators ‘ Workshop
Practice Group Guidance
Core Concepts Training
Creating a Practice Group

7. Cultivating Practice Realising Self A Showing Up Occupying the Ground
Affecting the Field
Source: Amanda Ridings

8. Research Question
What evidence exists to demonstrate that organisations and individuals that use dialogic methods and practices generate effective change and produce lasting results?

9. Work done so far Literature review on dialogue
Extension of literature review to include Dialogic Organisation Development (OD)
Interviews ( Dialogue practitioners in the NHS in Scotland; Centre for Dialogue, Queen Margaret University)
Correspondence with international dialogue and dialogic OD practitioners (Robert Marshak & Gervase Bushe, USA; Satu Kalliola, Finland; Olen Gunnlaugsen, Canada; Michael Roehrig, Germany)
Review of dialogue case study material published by Prison Dialogue and various consulting firms including Dialogos (Bill Isaacs) & Dialogue Associates (Peter Garrett)

10. Outcome of Literature Review
Academics contacted confirmed this was the case
“ No systematic reviews or similar high level evidence of the impact of dialogue on effective change were found by the search”
“studies in this field tend to be quasi- or non-experimental designs, involving case studies, without randomisation or control groups.”
Another problem is the variation in dialogue techniques used – studies are not based on a standard protocol.

11. Definitions vary between studies
Democratic Dialogue
Socratic Dialogue
Deliberative Dialogue
Policy Dialogue
Intergroup Dialogue
Essential elements
Dialogue includes an emotional dimension
Whole system represented
Suspension of status difference
Brings assumptions to the surface in a non judgmental way

12. Practice models vary Bohmian dialogue Dialogue and Structural Dynamics
Dialogue & Scenario Development
Structural Dynamics
Dialogue & Determination
Dialogue and mindfulness
Insight Dialogue

13. Some interesting case studies
Prison Dialogue
A different way of talking with prisoners to reduce reoffending rates and improve resettlement
Improving relationships and trust between managers in different parts of the justice system; changing a silo culture
Reconfiguring Canada’s Payments System
Building trust and creating a shared language & framework that enables people with different backgrounds, assumptions and interests to work together
“Those who initially identified primarily as bankers or tech. executives or telecoms experts or retailers gradually came to see each other as part of a more inclusive payments ecosystem or industry, a concept that did not exist prior to the work”

14. Closer to home AlcoLOLs Project Specialist Children’s Services, NHS
Designed to tackle the issues alcohol presents for young people; co-designed by young people and implemented by them. Training in dialogue facilitation enabled young people to facilitate their own dialogue groups in school. (Queen Margaret University)
Specialist Children’s Services, NHS
Increased self awareness and awareness of impact on others
Better team conversations
Behavioural change
OD Team, NHS
Increased awareness of group dynamics
Conscious Bystanding
More enquiry
Clearer way of contracting with clients
“No assumptions that we have the answer”

15. How Dialogue has been used
Training in dialogue principles and practices directed towards improving communications
Stakeholder engagement
Changing culture and behaviours
Building trust and relationships within teams
Inter-group relationships and collaboration
Policy development

16. Where might dialogue be used?
Develop breakthrough solutions that can work effectively across boundaries and jurisdictions
Address issues where there is no clear definition of the problem and where a pure scientific approach can’t be applied
Find common ground amongst multiple stakeholders who have very different problem definitions, perspectives, interests or mindsets
Create ownership of a shared vision
Build trust or credibility with stakeholders

17. Next Steps
Is this enough to inspire and engage colleagues to use dialogue to enable change?
Further interviews amongst dialogue practitioners
Set up our own research project with a control group to test the effectiveness of dialogue for organisational change.