Here’s a theme that’s been coming up in conversation lately. It’s about conversation itself. Here’s a quote from a guest* at last week’s Gennova meeting. Mira Furth, SEA Consultants, was speaking about shifting the cultural context for an architectural engineering firm from individal personal behaviors to collaborative (sound familiar?):

“How do you help people who are not experienced in dialogue to move from mechanistic responses to collaborative relationships?”

*I’m traveling and will need to get home to update this blog with her full name.

Meanwhile, earlier this week I finished a draft of a case study I’m writing with Rob Cross and Adrian (Zeke) Wolfberg from the DIA. It’s a story about building a knowledge network; an Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) project plays a role in helping identify people who have high connectivity. Zeke’s overall program includes work with Nancy Dixon, a workshop in “Critical Discourse”. This program teaches people skills that enable them to have more productive conversations. The comments from people who have been through the workshop are illuminating material.

Another client is working with a different consultant along the same lines, giving people the skills to converse collaboratively and productively (I’m waiting for specifics). Another “blindingly simple” truth emerged in my writing projects about sense-making, collaboration, and networks. Part of the formula for building a collaborative network must include:

1. Understand the context and create a shared understanding of the context (this is the sense-making part)
2. Create the conditions that enable people to find and work with one another based on relevant knowledge (this is the KM/collaboroation tools/infrastructure stuff)
3. Provide individuals with new skills necessary to engage in effective collaboration (this is the conversation and dialogue part that enables building the ties that in aggregate make a network)

I’ve never lost sight of the need for the development of the dialogue skills (since I first learned them — about them, anyway — in the early 90s in a workshop by David Isaacs himself). But I’ve not seen the requirement so clearly articulated in the network context. I’d love to hear from people who have introduced conversational distinctions, methods, and skills to their clients (inside your organizations or as consultants) to shape this theme further.