Finding Clarity in the Midst of Conflict: Facilitating Dialogue and Skillful Discussion Using a Model from the Quaker Tradition

Keywords: clearness committee, conflict management, dialogue, facilitation, learning organization

Keywords:

Abstract:

Consultants and facilitators increasingly use formal approaches to dialogue as a means to build the capacity of groups to engage at deeper levels of collective understanding. For example, the contributors to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook propose the application of dialogue techniques to the practice fields of “mental models” and “team learning” as ways to build the skills of inquiry and reflection into the day-to-day activities of groups of all kinds. Combining the work of William Isaacs and the Dialogue Project at MIT with a model from the Quaker tradition, this paper suggests a tool for skillful discussion that can allow a group to deal with conflict by stepping back into a shared silence that generates critical questions, and describes a case example of its use.