HOW CAN WE CREATE THE CONDITIONS FOR SUSTAINED DIALOGUE AND DELIBERATION?

The original 12/12/04 posting of these ideas was distilled by Tom Atlee from a brainstorm done by about a dozen people during an hour-long Open Space session at the October 2004 National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) conference in Denver.

Our motivation: We know a lot about creating dialogue and deliberation EVENTS. But we also know that the true power of dialogue and deliberation will only be realized as we develop an ongoing CULTURE of dialogue and deliberation. That will require SUSTAINED dialogue and deliberation - beyond mere events. So how do we nurture that?

These ideas are being posted on the NCDD wiki so that they can be referred to, added to or edited by anyone interested - including you.

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APPROACHES TO NURTURING SUSTAINED DIALOGUE AND DELIBERATION

NOTICE EXISTING CONVERSATIONS. Acknowledge that much dialogue and deliberation is already happening, often informally, and learn its strengths and weaknesses. Support and connect together those already practicing it. Look for what has worked and validate its presence in the community generally.

NOTICE EXISTING RESOURCES. Notice, validate, nurture and use the existing resources for dialogue and deliberation -- libraries, cafes, universities and schools, churches and temples, community groups, conference spaces, hot community topics, interested public officials and funders, etc.

ENGAGE THE SYSTEM AS IT IS. Organizations, communities and societies are living organisms which have energies, needs and capacities of their own that we can and should attend to. We need to honor and interact with systems as they are, paying attention to the goals and dynamics that are already operating and noting what is trying to emerge there, and inviting it to surface.

STAY COOL. Avoid becoming dialogue and deliberation evangelists selling conversations to people who are not eager to participate in them. Ease up our attachment to outcomes so we can stay in the inquiry about how to do all this in ways that keep ourselves and others engaged. Curiosity is often more engaging than assertion.

BE PASSIONATE. Don't be so concerned about imposing on people that we never fight for what we believe in. Create well-facilitated forums where we can be as passionate as we want, and others can be as passionate as they want, and good things come of it. A safe space for passion is very attractive.

BE INCLUSIVE. Ask "Who else should be in this conversation?" Seek to include all types of community members, stakeholders, parts of the system / problem / potential solution - even outsiders. Realize that marginalizing relevant voices will reduce the quality of any outcome and impede the implementation of any decision.

BE' '''''REALLY''''' 'INCLUSIVE. This goes beyond "Who else should be in this conversation?" to "What is the best way to include them?" Find ways to include even those who don't want to be included in your chosen process. This requires humility to see things through their eyes and an expansive willingness to be guided by who they are, in order to create forms of engagement they would find enjoyable and meaningful. (At the same time, don't assume that everybody has to be involved in everything. Often having sufficient or appropriate diversity or strategically selected participants is more fruitful than mass participation. And many people WANT other people to do such "public work" for them - as long as it is done well - so they can just get on with their lives. We don't want dialogue and deliberation to become oppressive. Sometimes being really inclusive involves doing a random selection to cover a cross-section of the community - and, after the selection is done, still being creative to enable or encourage some of the selectees to participate in order to actually HAVE that cross-section.)

WEAVE METHODOLOGIES. Weave multiple forms of dialogue and deliberation into more holistic programs that meet a variety of needs, serve many community-building functions, and feed into each other in creative or useful ways. This requires understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different forms, and remaining flexible.

USE OPEN SPACE - not necessarily as a conference process, but as an organizing model: Create a way for all the various dialogue organizers, dialogue and deliberation methods, topics, interest groups and interested citizens in the community to find each other and work together. Have times or ways where they can share experiences and learnings, and learn new conversational tools and skills together.

THINK BEYOND DIALOGUE. Integrate elements that are not "strictly dialogue and deliberation" but which strongly support high quality conversation. A culture of dialogue and deliberation is supported by:

• people doing things together - especially eating, hanging out and recreation - but also art, music, building things, helping people, hiking, etc. (In ecumenical efforts they say "Theology divides, service unites.")

• making available community dialogue and deliberation-oriented information resources, from civic journalism (citizenship-enhancing news coverage of issues and dialogues) to internet access to balanced briefings by public officials and diverse advocacy groups, etc.

• providing community-supportive art, music, performance, story-telling, etc.

• providing dialogue-friendly spaces - especially places to sit - from sidewalk cafes to park benches to alcoves in libraries, restaurants and public buildings, to full-fledged conference facilities.

• encouraging planners to lay out community infrastructure (streets, parks, public buildings, etc.) so that it is easy and natural for people to walk, sit and talk together

• developing personnel and organizational resources for dialogue and deliberation, including training facilitators/moderators, organizing convenors, developing funders, etc.

INSTITUTIONALIZE DIALOGUE AND DELIBERATION. Public hearings are a very low-quality form of public participation - but they have been embedded into law as a requirement before certain actions are taken. How much better to require a real public deliberation (like a National Issues Forum) or a citizen deliberative council (like a Citizens Jury) when important issues are before the legislature or the voters. Organize campaigns to make certain forms of dialogue or deliberation part of city charters, regulatory actions, conflict resolution, city planning laws, citizen reviews, etc.

MAKE DELIBERATION CREATIVE. Include a good variety of approaches to the issue being deliberated - at least three or four (to avoid polarization) - and encourage creative thinking beyond those. Sometimes it is best to separate the creative conversations from the activities that weigh pros, cons and trade-offs. When the trade-offs are too unpleasant, turn the problem over to the creative process. When the creative process comes up with new options, turn them over to a process that considers their trade-offs.

RESPOND TO THREATS. Set up dialogue and deliberation systems that go into effect whenever a certain number of people perceive a significant threat to the community or to the group to which they belong.

TALK ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY. Convene dialogues ABOUT sustainability - a topic which is going to be increasingly recognized as urgent for all of us and isn't going to go away.

PROMOTE TALK' '''''AS''''' 'SUSTAINABILITY. Also recognize that dialogue and deliberation are important aspects of community sustainability, providing feedback systems that make the community more alert and responsive to a changing environment and generating resources ("social capital") for collective action.

ENCOURAGE CROSS-POLLINATION. Encourage people to participate in diverse conversations so that people flow through many conversations and cross-pollinate. Nurture cross-border conversations. Collective learning often happens across boundaries with people previously seen as outsiders, strangers or even enemies.

CREATE ROLE MODEL CONVERSATIONS. Convene and publicize highly visible high quality conversations which have special process support, special balance of diverse participants, special access to information, etc. Help the public notice how good a high quality conversation can be. Then organize subsequent mass-participation conversations in which everyday citizens can talk about what happened in (or came out of) those special conversations - perhaps affording them a better conversational experience, inspired by those role models. (Note that fictional role model conversations can also be created in novels, movies and plays.)

ENGAGE THE HEART. Engage people at the heart, spirit, values, deep meaning and narrative level, as well as at the head level. Use people's passions as a resource for self-organizing energy. Note that some people will be especially attracted to group activities that facilitate individual transformation.

MAKE IT GOOD. Give people a good experience of dialogue and deliberation. Arrange the right conditions and expectations. Often this means ensuring the right facilitation, the right duration and pacing, sufficient resources, good briefings, good research ahead of time, choosing a juicy topic or question, etc. If an invitational or open conversation is frustrating or unproductive, people won't likely come back.

EMPOWER DIALOGUE AND DELIBERATION. Arrange for conversations - especially citizen deliberations - to have a noticeable impact on the issues or systems they address. Some organizers get prior commitments from decision-makers to respond to deliberations or their outcomes. If people feel their talking and thinking together made a real difference for their community, they will come back for more - and they will probably support other dialogue and deliberation initiatives, as well.

ORGANIZE THE PARTICIPANTS. The vast majority of citizens who participate in high-quality, facilitated public-sphere dialogue and deliberation (i.e., not public hearings) value the experience. Many of them discover a new dimension to their citizenship and become more active afterwards. They are a potential constituency to create a demand for ongoing and institutional forms of dialogue and deliberation. They just need to be organized.

USE COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST. Notice, facilitate and operate through communities of interest, practice and learning - many of which already exist (often informally, embedded within organizations, groups and communities) and many more of which can be organized. Link such interest communities and networks to each other and to the whole system in ways that make dialogue and deliberation a natural part of their collaboration and co-evolution. Note that communities of interest can be vital in raising issues or inquiries for the larger community to consider. Help that happen.

FOCUS ON NEIGHBORHOODS. In neighborhoods - especially challenged ones - the problems and opportunities tend to be experienced vividly, providing energy for good creative dialogue and deliberation. The Fort Collins Neighborhood Resources Network and Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program are examples of this focus.

USE NETWORKING THEORY. Read the book NEXUS about networking theory. Networks develop locally but, thanks to a few long-range connections, can become coherent in ways that allow information to travel through them very rapidly. Linking high quality dialogue and deliberation to networks will likely help sustain them all.

HAVE DIALOGUE LEAD TO TANTALIZING QUESTIONS. The logic of inquiry circles - in which each person addresses the question the last speaker asked them, but then asks a new, related question to the next person - can be applied to larger conversations. Conversations might always end provocatively with one or more questions to seed further conversations. If we do this well, it will be like the novelist who finishes each chapter in such a way that we feel we HAVE to read the next chapter: Each conversation would end with questions that are so provocative / evocative that we feel we HAVE to join in the next conversation..

CONSIDER SPIRITUAL CITY FORUM AS A MODEL. In this Portland, Oregon, initiative, an expert speaker speaks at a luncheon and, instead of the usual Q&A session, the speaker then sits down at one of the tables and there is a moment of silence. Then anyone who wants to ask a question does so and silence descends again. Then another person asks a question. Silence again.. The inquiries accumulate with no one answering them. When all audience questions have been asked, everyone starts talking about the topic at their tables, with their tablemates. At the end, the speaker can speak for about 5 minutes of closing comments. Many people come back to this kind of forum over and over again.

ENCOURAGE ALL INITIATIVES. Dialogue and deliberation initiatives can come from all sources - from citizens, elected officials, bureaucrats, media, corporations, community organizations, religious institutions, educational institutions.. Encourage them all. Encourage co-sponsorships, especially across sectors. Use conversations to heal the rifts between sectors, such as between citizens and government officials, and turn them into collaborators (who then value and want to continue such conversations).

DEVELOP COMMUNITY CONVERSATION AS A CAPACITY. Think of conversation as essential to the community addressing the issues it faces. Build it up as a capacity that is on call whenever it is needed - "a culture of dialogue and deliberation" that people expect will manifest whenever there's a shared problem, conflict or opportunity. We can understand this as "community intelligence," "community wisdom" or "a learning society" which learns its way through whatever comes up. Practicing dialogue and deliberation builds this capacity in individuals, groups, government and the whole community.

VALUE BOTH ACTION AND NON-ACTION. Some conversations produce collective actions, visions, decisions, statements, projects or working groups. Some inspire self-organized individual action. Others build relationships, resolve conflicts, erode stereotypes or build the community's 'social capital' to better meet challenges yet to come. Others help people (including decision-makers) to think more clearly and broadly about a complex issue, or to better appreciate how others think and feel about it. Some conversations simply delight or interest the participants or bystanders. Help all kinds of conversation flourish and feed each other.