Deep dialogue

Dialogue is probably a word like inclusion which we all use and may never unpack and seek it's authentic meaning. It is also something we all are in favour of. Yet this doesn't prove we know what it is or even practice it! So what is dialogue? Is it discussion? Is it listening? Or something more?

I attended the first session of the Leeds Indaba Programme last week. This is a leadership, ideas and innovation fellowship in Leeds based at the Centre for Innovation inHealthcare Management. Based at  the University of Leeds, CIHM is a centre of inspiration, idea generation and testing, community outreach and teaching in innovative and creative forms. To my mind, CIHM is both an assett of and gift to the city of Leeds.

The Indaba programme is a joint partnership between the Centre, the University of Stellenbosch University in South Africa and the VU University in Amsterdam. Becky Malby, director of CIHM, Professor Erwin Schwella and Professor Goos Minderman were the facilitators. Indaba is a word meaning an important conference held by members of the Zulu or Xhosa people of South Africa. The Leeds Indaba was a meeting of a number of leaders from across the country from business, the NHS and the Third Sector. Its aim was to allow a discussion about leadership, positive passions, the NHS and its future and new fresh thinking.

I learnt many things. There was a large number of times when my mind lit up at comments made as they made sense of other things or connected them. In this post I will focus on the concept of dialogue. At the beginning of the session we each went around and spoke of who we were and our roles and interests. This was very different from when this is usually done. Usually people say their name, role and place of work. This was deeper. Those who attended spent some time talking about themselves and their journey. Throughout the day the honesty, depth and openness of the sharing was stimulating.  At the beginning of the day, Becky spoke of dialogue, she said, "It's only when we really know each that we can really have dialogue." This was one of those statements that illuminated my thought. In trying to unpack it the following things seem to come to view as learning points.

Perhaps to define dialogue we can look to a place where it holds a central place in everyday practice. This common place the word is used is in the religious world where different faiths will meet to work together and have dialogue. This is interesting as the world faiths have different views of the world and each other. Dialogue is the language or road they use to meet, listen and engage respectively with each other. The World Council of Churches has some wonderful words on the definition of dialogue. It states, "All dialogue involves an exchange, an interplay between speaking and suggesting on the one hand and listening and receiving on the other. Dialogue is, therefore, the opposite of monologue. It requires reciprocity and a certain equality...Dialogue is not merely 'discourse'". It is primarily a way of being together in charity, which gradually changes and renews the atmosphere.....where profound exchanges of thought and expression can achieve something which goes beyond clarity of conversation or individual conviction. ' ( WCC, Joint Working Group, 1967, 1). This definition embodies a rich message and offers a powerful praxis. It says to me that dialogue is about

          * being with the other

          * listening to the other

          * trying to understand the other's place - this doesn't mean necessarily agreeing with it

          * allowing the possibility of changing by exchange with the other.

Dialogue can only be deep when we know the other. Yet to know the other we have to dialogue with him or her. So there is a circle of connectivity and conversation which leads from dialogue to knowing and then to further and deeper dialogue. This circle of dialogue can keep going on and on. To be committed to deep dialogue means to be committed to deep listening, deep respect and deep sharing. It points to what the famous novelist Charles Williams called 'co-inherence.' This word gives us a clue to deep dialogue. It suggests connecting and in a sense dwelling in the other. To share in the hopes, struggles and life of another. This mutual indwelling while remaining ourselves would be the deepest dialogue. I have no doubt such dialogue has a power and connection that can cause real change and newness of vision.

Yet this deep dialogue seems to demands something else. A deeper dialogue seems to assume  a deeper commitment and conversation than we often have. I would suggest it demands an inner freedom in ourselves. The late British theologian Charles Davis spoke of "the openness and love that derive from inner freedom." This is a powerful insight. It's when we have authentic inner freedom that we can really love and be open. Our closed minds, fear and lack of real freedom within all make the most important things we both need and can offer very difficult. Charles Davis spoke of the need to find 'self-appropriation.'  He explained this by writing the following, "Happiness isn't not a quiescence gained by a narrowing of consciousness; it demands that a man accept the autonomy proper to him as a free person. A man has to take in hand his own becoming, decide what he is to make of himself, and then carry out his decision. Just to follow what others do or say and wait passively upon events is to live a diminished personal existence......to be fully a person does mean freely to take the decisions that determine the direction and growth of one's existence."

Deep dialogue flows from deep freedom and deep living. Perhaps this brings us to the fundamental lesson of leadership. Leadership is not something primarily we do - it's something we are. And that something we have to seek as we seek the freedom of self appropriation. I enjoyed the first Indaba meeting and look forward to the next. It was great to meet such good colleagues from different sectors and sit with them trying to listen and engage. It struck me that the Leeds Indaba was not just a space to learn but a school for deep dialogue. In that deep dialogue lies the possibility of some really invigorating and stimulating offerings. It's good to be on board the Indaba.

John Walsh. York Street Health Practice