I’ve been slowly chewing on William Issacs’ book on Dialogue. I am surprised that I haven’t read it before.
AS well as reading the book, I have been subscribed to the del.icio.us tag on “dialogue.” Today in the aggregator, I found a great summary of the facilitation skills needed in Dialogue. From the paper:
The only problem for you is that facilitating a group to Dialogue means: not leading. It takes great discipline to describe the process, lead a discussion on the escape routes and then abdicate your control to the group. But the discipline of keeping your trap shut will pay off. If you let them, they will come up with better ideas than you ever considered. And those ideas will be their ideas. Groups implement their ideas much more readily that your ideas. This is the hidden power of Dialogue. It is the secret to creating ownership (an over-used term). The reason most leaders can�t do it, is because they can�t stay quiet long enough for their group to rise to the occasion. A good facilitator creates a vacuum of leadership perfectly shaped not for one individual, but for the whole group.”