A common complaint about organisational life is 'poor communication'. Organisational life is predominantly about conversation: good conversations lead to good outcomes and poor conversations do the opposite. One of the greatest interferences with conversation, in my opinion, is the overuse of emails.

Don't you 'appreciate it' when you send an email to an individual and the reply comes back with 10 extra names in the copy to list?

Perhaps you really 'enjoy' the email answers that aren't really answers to issues that you have raised in an email - a 'conversation' is undertaken between parties who have been subsequently added to the list, each individual putting in their two cents worth one short sentence - an increasing line of the previous emails attached.

In 1991 the physicist David Bohm developed an approach to conversation which he called Dialogue.

Dialogue...."creates the opportunity for each participant to examine the preconceptions, prejudices and characteristic patterns that lie behind his or her thoughts, opinions, beliefs and feelings, along with the roles he or she tends to habitually play. And it offers an opportunity to share these insights." (Bohm et al, 1991)

Bohn contrasts Dialogue (derived from Greek words implying 'a flow of meaning') with discussion (derived from Latin words implying, 'a shaking apart'). The former is generative and collaborative, the latter analytical and often competitive. Though Dialogue can be frustrating it should be experienced and valued rather than avoided. This means more time devoted to exploring and not looking for escape routes to avoid participation.

There are no quick fixes for those intent on poor dialogue and toxic organisational cultures.

Dialogue..."enables enquiry into, and understanding of, the sorts of processes that fragment and interfere with real communication between individuals, nations and even different parts of the same organisation. In our modern culture men and women are able to interact with one another in many ways: they can sing, dance or play together with little difficulty but their ability to talk together about subjects that matter deeply to them seems invariably to lead to dispute, division and often to violence.

In Dialogue, a group of people can explore the collective presuppositions, ideas, beliefs, and feelings that subtly control their interactions. It provides an opportunity to participate in a process that displays communication successes and failures. It can reveal the often puzzling patterns of incoherence that lead the group to certain issues or, on the other hand, to insist , against all reason, on standing and defending opinions about particular issues.

Dialogue is a way of observing, collectively, how hidden values and intentions can control our behaviour, and how unnoticed cultural differences can clash without our realising what is occurring. It can therefore be seen as an arena in which collective learning takes place and out of which a sense of increased harmony, fellowship and creativity can arise. (Bohm et al 1991)

What a difference Dialogue could make.

Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180) Emperor of Rome 161–180, distinguished Stoic philosopher Meditations

For the full text of an influential paper: http://tinyurl.com/4w2vzh

See also: Heads Together Communication and Clarity