"Science is rooted in conversation. The cooperation of various people can culminate in extremely important scientific results ”Werner Heisenberg.
The subtle network of Bohm's metaphor
Bohm has a very pedagogical metaphor for coaching.
Consider collective thinking as a flow. It represents it as if it were a continuous stream. The thoughts are like leaves floating in the waters that lick the banks. If we collect the leaves and experience them as thoughts, we mistakenly believe that they are ours because we fail to see the stream of collective thinking that drags them.
But with dialogue, you can start to see the stream flowing between the banks.
You begin to participate in the reserve of common meaning, which is capable of constant development and change.
Continuing with the metaphor Bohm believes that our normal thinking processes are like a rough network that gathers only the roughest elements of the stream. Instead, dialogue develops a kind of sensibility that transcends what we normally recognize as thinking.
With dialogue we have a subtle network that is capable of picking up the subtle meanings of the flow of thought.
Bohm believes that this sensitivity, this subtle network, is at the roots of true intelligence.
Dialogue as a field of personal training and corporate learning
Dialogue was revered by the ancient Greeks and practiced by many primitive societies such as the American Indians. Instead it was almost lost in today's world until its momentous importance has been rediscovered. Surely you think that we practice it and that in certain conversations you have managed to make it have its own life. However, these experiences are not as frequent as would be appropriate and are, in general, more a product of circumstances than of a systematic strategy and disciplined practice.
The purpose of dialogue is to transcend the understanding of a single individual.
The purpose of dialogue is not to try to win, but to win everyone, if it is done correctly.
In dialogue, understanding and learning can be obtained that cannot be generated individually.
In dialogue two people or a group generate a greater reserve of common meaning capable of development and constant change. It is one of the keys to meta communication and team learning.
A group can explore complex issues from various points of view.
Participants put their assumptions on hold even if they communicate them freely. Its result is a free exploration that allows the full depth of experience and personal thought to emerge, transcending those individual perspectives.
Dialogue allows us to reveal the inconsistency of our thinking.
David Bohm, a leading quantum physicist, developed a dialogue theory and methodology in which the group opens up to the flow of a broader intelligence. It should come as no surprise that a quantum physicist is the agent of the emerging discipline of team learning. Another physicist Heisenberg had stated: “Science is rooted in conversations. The cooperation of various people can culminate in extremely important scientific results. ” Phrase with the we started this article.
Also Einstein, Bohr and other figures that collapsed and remodeled traditional physics during the last century, have reflected and made great contributions along the same lines.
Bhom's model reveals that the inconsistency of thought manifests itself in several ways:
- Thought denies that it is participatory. It stops tracking reality and establishes its own reference plan to solve problems, problems that it helped to create.
What is a prejudice?
When a person accepts a stereotype about a particular group, that thought becomes an active agent in the way the person acts with another who belongs to that stereotyped class.
He does not understand that this prejudice shapes what he sees and his way of acting. If I understood it, there would be no prejudice.
- Thought presents itself and pretends it does not represent. We are like actors who forget that they are playing their part. Reality may change but the theater continues. We operate in the theater, defining and solving problems, losing contact with the broader reality in which we are acting.
Dialogue is a powerful tool to help you learn to observe your own thoughts.
When in a dialogue a conflict arises and you notice a tension, Who produces it?
Your thoughts.
Your thoughts and your way of holding on to them are the ones in conflict, not you. Once you become aware of their participation, you distance yourself from thinking and adopt a more creative and less reactive stance.
-Dialogue also allows you to observe that the nature of thought is collective. For example, language is collective. And without language, thought as we know it would not exist. Most of the assumptions you profess you have acquired in the cultural reserve of your environment. You usually learn little to think for yourself. And whoever thinks for himself, Emerson said many years ago, will be misinterpreted.
It has begun to consider the difference between thinking as a continuous process and thoughts as a result of this process.
For Bohm this is very important to start correcting the inconsistency of our thinking.
Collective dialogue is not only possible but vital to realize the development of the potential of human intelligence.
Basic conditions for dialogue to work
Bohm identifies three basic conditions that are necessary for dialogue:
- All participants must suspend their assumptions and keep them suspended before themselves. All participants must see themselves as partners. There must be a coach or coordinator who maintains the context of the dialogue.
Through these conditions we can contribute to the free flow of meaning passing through all the participants, reducing the resistance to the flow. Cold energy is produced in dialogue, as in a superconductor. This allows discussing hot topics, issues that without it would be sources of conflict and emotional tension, even fractures. Instead, they become options for achieving shared visions.
Suspension of assumptions
The suspension of personal assumptions is key to the free flow of meaning. Assumptions occur, as we have said, because thinking is normally not participatory. It does not attend to, much less track reality. He continues with his guidelines, his assumptions, we can consider among them prejudices, generalizations, the belief that we already know the meaning of the flow of dialogue.
Suspending personal assumptions means holding them, as if you visualized them hanging in front of you, heard you hanging close to your ears, or felt above your knees. That they are accessible for observation, inquiry, reflection and questioning.
This does not mean rejecting your assumptions or repressing or silencing them. Nor does it mean that subjectivism is bad or that you cannot have opinions. It specifically means being aware of your assumptions and subjecting them to examination. And, this, you will not be able to do if you insist on defending your opinions or you are not aware that your perspectives are based on assumptions and not on proven facts.
Bohm argues that when an individual nails their heels they decide that this is the way it is, the flow of dialogue is blocked. Because the mind wants to keep moving away from the suspension of assumptions… to adopt rigid and non-negotiable positions that we then feel compelled to defend.
We cite an example of a case of yours experienced in team training of a highly successful technology company. All staff perceived a deep split in the organization, between R&D and everyone else. This split was due to the great importance of this role in the company. Product innovation was the cornerstone of its reputation. For this reason, no one commented on it, although it began to create many problems. Doing so was supposed to have challenged the traditional value of technological leadership, which gave its highly creative engineers the autonomy to pursue their visions.
A disciple of Bohm, in a meeting organized with the purpose of solving this situation, raised the condition of suspending all the assumptions from the outset. Immediately, the head of marketing asked:
- All the assumptions? All the assumptions, "he replied.
The head of marketing was puzzled. He acknowledged that he had the assumption that R&D viewed himself as the organization that carried the organization's flame and seemed unwilling to examine information about the market. This led to the intervention of the R&D manager who replied that he also assumed that others saw him this way and, to everyone's surprise, believed that this assumption limited the effectiveness of R&D. Both shared these assumptions but not as proven facts. So the dialogue was directed towards an intense exploration of points of view that were unprecedented in the entire history of the company in terms of sincerity and strategic implications.
See each other as partners
Dialogue is only fruitful when people see themselves as partners in the common search for perception and clarity. What seems so simple is a profound change. It is crucial to counterbalance the vulnerability that dialogue causes.
It is interesting to see that as the dialogue progresses the participants discover that the feeling of friendship extends even to others with whom they do not have much in common.
This occurs if there is a willingness to consider each other as partners.
Suspending the assumptions involves the risk of a certain vulnerability. Treating each other as partners establishes a certain security to face this risk. It is easy to feel companionship when everyone agrees. On the other hand, when there are deep disagreements, it is difficult. But the result may be greater if we decide to see the opponents as partners with other perspectives. The benefits can be very great.
As we see and develop in Coaching for the construction of intelligent organization, specifically in the team learning module, both the condition of suspending assumptions and seeing each other as colleagues are not easy to satisfy. But it has been discovered and proven that many teams are up to the challenge if they know in advance what is expected of them. Deep within each there is a longing for dialogue whenever possible in an organization especially when it focuses on matters of utmost importance to all.
A coach or expert who maintains the context until the group learns
In the absence of an expert, your habits push you towards discussion and away from dialogue. You believe in your opinions and you want them to prevail. You are concerned about suspending all assumptions. You may even think: Are there some assumptions I must hold on to so as not to lose my identity?
The coach or expert in a dialogue session fulfills many of the functions of a good process coach. These functions include helping people to be part of the process and its results. The coach must keep the context of the dialogue, the flow, the dialogue going. If someone begins to divert the process towards discussion, it is necessary to identify the situation and ask the group: Do you consider that we are respecting the conditions of dialogue? The coach always keeps a balance between her ability and service attitude, without adopting a doctor's attitude.
As a team gains experience, it learns and the coach becomes less important. Dialogue emerges from the group. In teams where dialogue is a permanent discipline, the coach is not normally necessary.
Balance between dialogue and discussion
In team coaching, discussion is the necessary counterpart to dialogue. Different points of view are presented and defended in a discussion. Instead, as we have seen, various points of view are presented in the dialogue with the purpose of discovering a new point of view.
Decisions are made in a discussion. Complex issues are explored in the dialogue. Productive discussions converge on one conclusion. The dialogues, on the other hand, are divergent, they do not seek agreement but learning.
The rules of the game are different. The goals are different. If a learning team does not distinguish them, it does not dominate the difference between dialogue and discussion, it has neither dialogue nor productive discussion.
Members of a team that engages in dialogue regularly learn to develop unique relationships. The trust that is created is transferred to the discussion. A greater understanding of the uniqueness of the other's perspective is created. Furthermore, you learn to establish broader understandings when you defend your own point of view gently, without the determination to win.
Dialogue and discussion that are supported by reflection and inquiry are always more productive.
They are less vulnerable to circumstantial details such as personal sympathies or dislikes.
