November 2005 Newsletter

Welcome to the second issue of the GDP newsletter. Visit our website at www.generativedialogue.org where you can find information about the GDP and our ongoing activities.

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What is the GDP?

The GDP aims to build dialogue and change capacity around the world to address critical global issues. We focus upon dialogic change processes that encompass personal, organizational and societal transformation. We call these dialogic change processes because they involve people coming together seeking to make positive change through deep conversation and mutual understanding. We believe these processes are most effective when they involve all relevant system actors, and particularly when they span the three basic sectoral divisions—business, government, and civil society. As dialogue participants deepen their awareness of each person's role in a larger system of interactions, they are more likely to develop innovative approaches of the scale and duration needed to address issues on a global scale. 

Our mission is to bring generative dialogic change approaches into worldwide, mainstream use. The GDP is a project of the Global Leadership Initiative, sponsored by The Synergos Institute in partnership with Global Action Network Net, the United Nations Development Programme Democratic Dialogue Project, and the Society for Organizational Learning.

We began our work in late 2003 in response to many years of field experience and early research findings that indicated the value of a broader understanding and mastery of dialogic approaches to complex global problems. We are particularly interested in how to sustain this type of activity over the years necessary for deep change and across the distances that separate actors in a global system. You can read more about generative dialogic change at http://www.generativedialogue.org/about/more.html

GDP Launch Meeting and Community Development

In October, 46 people gathered in New York City to launch the GDP as a global community. Most participants were meeting each other for the first time, and that made the meeting particularly stimulating for many of them. “The true value” of the meeting, wrote one participant in a follow-up survey, “lay in meeting a widely diverse group of people driven by similar ideals. There was a palpable sphere of mutual interest and respect.” Wrote another: “I was left with a yearning to know them, personally as well as their work, much better.” By the end of the two and a half-day meeting, it seemed that the group had begun to develop the kinds of connections that could sustain further development of the GDP global community.

The GDP Support Team spent the eighteen months leading up to the launch meeting identifying dialogue practitioners through networking and research. Since the beginning of 2005 a small Launch Meeting Core Group had helped to guide the community building effort and meeting planning. “The hardest part was limiting the number of people to attend,” commented GDP Co-Director Bettye Pruitt. “We wanted a size small enough to do real community building, and our resources were limited. This meant we could not invite many people who are leaders in the field and would have made valuable contributions. Going forward, we aim to continue to find ways to bring more people in.”

The participants comprised individuals with a diversity of nationalities and issue area interests from three main groups that are critical to building the global community. One group is dialogue experts from different fields of practice, such as conflict prevention, democracy building, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and corporate social engagement. A second group includes issue owners who focus upon a particular global challenge such as corruption or labor. A third group is dialogue promoters—people working in international organizations and foundations such as the World Bank and the International Conservation Union who want to see dialogue further developed and applied to produce change.  

Here are short bios for several of the GDP Launch participants. You can find the full list of participants ad their biographies at the GDP Participants page. Sample participants:

Elena Díez Pinto is currently Chief Technical Advisor of a UNDP project to strengthen democratic governance in Latin America and the Caribbean through democratic dialogue and knowledge-creation projects.
Mari Fitzduff is currently Professor and Director of the international MA program in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis University, in Boston, USA.
Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz is co-founder and Executive Director of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD).
John Drexhage is Director of the International Institute for Sustainable Development's Climate Change and Energy Program.
Andre van Heemstra is an executive committee and board member of Unilever.

One major question the participants addressed was the diversity of their understanding and ways of thinking about “dialogue” and “change”. In small and large group conversations, they investigated what these words meant to them, what they are doing in the world to bring about positive change, and the questions they are holding around how to move their work forward. 

The group also considered two cases. In one, John Drexhage, director of the International Institute for Sustainable Development and Indian businessman Uday Khemka shared some of the challenges they are facing in trying to make progress in the area of climate change, with particular reference to the use of coal as fuel. In the second case, Adam Kahane of Generon Consulting and Pierre Vuarin of the Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer described the Sustainable Food Lab, an ongoing global, multi-stakeholder initiative using the U-Process for deep personal engagement and breakthrough innovation.  Again, the case owners brought forward some of the hurdles they are confronting, as well as stories of successes they have had along the way. In both large- and small-group conversations, participants discussed the issues in the cases and the implications for expanding our understanding of effective use of dialogic processes.  While most people felt that focusing on specific cases was valuable, there was general agreement that there should have been more time to go deeper into them. The case write-ups prepared in advance of the meeting are available on the GDP website in the Resources section.

Also in the meeting, the Support Team presented a “Community of Practice” model as a key framework for organizing the GDP community (see figure below). This led to further discussion about the “domain” of the community—that is, what specifically the community is organized around. A variety of questions emerged in this conversation, such as whether the community should focus upon dialogue only or dialogue in the context of a broader set of tools for social change. Participants appeared to resonate with Mari Fitzduff when she suggested, “This is a global social change group, and the main method we’re talking about using is generative dialogue.”

The framework also led to discussion about future community activities. The list of suggested activities is below. The GDP Support Team is now in the process of consulting with meeting participants to determine where the most energy and interest is for moving forward.

• Case studies
• Action research associated with projects people are currently working on
• Collaborating with other community members on new dialogue/change efforts
• Codifying knowledge into workshop/educational materials
• Comparative analysis of generative change approaches/movements past and present
• Developing and offering education programs
• Developing impact indicators
• Designing the next face-to-face meeting
• Learning from each other what's working/what's stuck/lessons learned

A full Report on the State of the GDP Community Following the Community Launch Meeting is available from the GDP website.

GDP Community Development

The community of practice model developed by Etienne Wenger and Bill Snyder guides the GDP’s development. It suggests the main components of a vital community depicted in the figure below.  At this early stage of community development, we are relying on three key groups to move the GDP forward: the Core Group, the Sponsor Group, and the Support Team.

Core Group: The Core Group is playing a critical role in the community.  A Launch Core Group comprised well-known people in the field helped guide development up to the Launch Meeting.  A new Core Group comprising 8 to 10 participants from the Launch meeting is forming. A consultative process will aim to define a Core Team that reflects the community's diversity. The Core Group’s role includes:

• Recruiting and assimilating new community members
• Synthesizing community interests and priorities to set strategic direction
• Proposing activities, participants, and funding
• Coordinate and engage with other to achieve results
• Assess and renew the domain, the community, the practice

Sponsor Group: This Group ensures the GDP access to networks and resources necessary and provides strategic advice. Currently, we have a Sponsor Group representing our most engaged institutional sponsors to date. It includes Ralph Taylor of the Metanoia Foundation, our major funder; John Heller of Synergos Institute, our current institutional home; and Tom Rautenberg of Generon Consulting, the organizational originator of the Generative Dialogue Project and our major fund raiser to date.  The Support Group is being expanded to reflect added commitment arising from the meeting. 

Support Team:The Support Team is Bettye Pruitt, Steve Waddell, Katrin Kaeufer, and Kate Parrot, with Bill Snyder as advisor. All are part-time.  This Group undertook initiating research and staffed the development of the Launch Meeting.  It is now focusing upon further development of the other two Groups and community activities.

GDP Funding

Other Activities and Research to Date

A number of publications and papers from GDP meeting participants have been posted on the GDP website in the Resources section. Examples include:

Hemmati, Minu (2002) Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability—Beyond Deadlock and Conflict. (London: Earthscan, 2002)
Susskind, Lawrence, et al. (2003) "Multistakeholder Dialogue at the Global Scale"
Woodhill, Jim (2004) "Facilitating Complex Multi-Stakeholder Processes: A Social Learning Perspective"

GDP Support Team Working Paper

The research activities of the GDP Support Team in 2003-2004 culminated in a working paper entitled: "Dialogic Approaches to Global Challenges: Moving from 'Dialogue Fatigue' to Dialogic Change Processes." It is available at http://www.generativedialogue.org/resources. Here is an excerpt from the section "The Role of Dialogue in Dialogic Approaches," p. 6–9:

A central focus in the Generative Dialogue Project is on the human interactions that occur within the conversations taking place in dialogic change processes. We start from the premise that the nature of those interactions is a fundamental determinant of people's ability to make the kinds of changes they seek.

Human beings rely on language as our primary means of interacting and communicating. There are many different forms of language exchanges, which we engage in for a variety of reasons, and with a range of motivations. Many people are pointing to a particular form of human interaction—dialogue, especially multistakeholder dialogue—these days for its potential to address tough global challenges.

There is a large body of practice and a large literature on the subject of dialogue.12 Yet we found in our investigation of global change initiatives that people are pursuing dialogic approaches without much explicit consideration of what dialogue is or why they believe it is a useful way to work toward change. This means, for example, that the concept of "dialogue" is often mischaracterized as "consultation," where other stakeholders are solicited for their input, but remain outside the core decision-making process.

We use the Four Fields of Conversation diagram to help us think and talk about dialogue. In this framework, developed by Otto Scharmer, the four fields of conversation move from the least authentic and open, in the lower left-hand quadrant, counterclockwise to the most authentic, open, and creative in the upper left.13

We find this framework valuable because it allows us to make distinctions among processes that might be officially labeled dialogues, but in reality might have very different qualities of interaction. And it enables us to see more clearly how other interactions not formally considered dialogues—with people sitting in a room talking— might become more dialogic.

• Talking nice: This quadrant represents the most common form of conversation and communication. Scharmer defines this kind of interaction as "rule repeating." We say what we're expected to say in a specific situation: "how are you? I am fine."14 The kind of listening that corresponds to this is not listening at all, but just playing the tape in our heads.
• Talking tough: The rule-repeating game of talking nice might be interrupted when the conversation moves into a debate. In debate we say what we're really thinking, so, in that sense, it is progress toward greater authenticity. It creates energy in the conversational field, though it doesn't really produce anything new. A debate is about making a point and winning. We listen to what confirms or disconfirms our point of view.
• Reflective dialogue: Often, however, debate can lead to reflective dialogue, since it allows its participants to be authentic and to confront reality. In a reflective dialogue, as participants in the conversation, we begin to see the other person's perspective. We might not necessarily agree with what the other person has to say but we begin to understand where he or she is coming from. At the same time, in a reflective dialogue we begin to reflect on our own perspectives. We start observing ourselves while we are talking and listening. And our listening begins to be empathetic—we are not just listening to others' ideas to decide whether we agree or not, but also to try to understand where they are coming from. In his work on dialogue, Bill Isaacs identifies four capacities people exhibit when they engage in this kind of conversation: voicing—speaking the truth of one's own perspective; listening without resistance; respecting—demonstrating awareness of the impossibility of fully understanding others' positions; and suspending—letting go of assumptions, judgments, certainty.15
• Generative dialogue: In a generative dialogue our perception as participants shifts again. This time it moves from seeing the other person's perspective towards seeing the "whole." John Paul Lederach calls this shift into awareness of the whole the emergence of "moral imagination."16 The interaction becomes more intense, the boundaries between participants become blurred, and our perception of time slows down. Scharmer describes this deeper form of dialogue as "presencing," which is a creative experience of bringing forth that sense of the whole that is trying to come forward.17 Our definition of generative dialogue is grounded in our understanding of this quadrant of the conversation matrix: generative dialogue is conversation that brings forth creative energy and collective intelligence out of a personal sense of connection to the whole.

A story about Generative Dialogue:
"Ochaeta [director of the Guatemalan Archdiocesan Human Rights Office, which was documenting the atrocities of the civil war] said he had a story that he wanted to tell. . . . [He] had gone to a Mayan village to witness the exhumation of a mass grave—one of many—from a massacre. When the earth had been removed, he noticed a number of small bones. He asked the forensics team if people had had their bones broken during the massacre. No, the grave contained the corpses of women who had been pregnant. The small bones belonged to their fetuses.

When Ochaeta finished telling his story, the team was completely silent. . . . I looked around the circle and caught the eye of an old man, who simply nodded at me slowly. The silence lasted a long time, perhaps five minutes. Then it ended and we took a break. . . . In interviews years later, many members of the team referred to it. In the words of one member:

'The group gained the possibility of speaking frankly. Things could be said without upsetting the other party. I believe this helped to create a favorable atmosphere in which to express, if not the truth, certainly each person's truth. . . . In the end, and particularly after listening to Ochaeta's story, I understood and felt in my heart all that had happened. And there was a feeling that we must struggle to prevent this from happening again.'"

—From Adam Kahane, Solving Tough Problems, 116-117.

Upcoming Activities

The next major milestone for the GDP will a meeting of the expanded Core Group early in 2006. At that time, we will plan community activities, based on the feedback received in the launch meeting follow-up survey. In the meantime, the Support Team is working to keep the community updated on our progress and connected to the emergent phenomenon of the GDP.

Related News Items

Appended below are two news stories related to dialogue. We recognize that one of the main tasks for the GDP community is to explore what we mean by "dialogic change processes," and what kinds of approaches, tools, and methods we should include on our collective learning agenda. The following news items give a flavor of the ways that people are talking about dialogue and dialogic change in the world today. We hope that these examples will stimulate our thinking about what areas we as a community want to investigate, and how to draw the boundaries around the GDP domain of practice.

The first article is related to the recent GDP report "Dialogic Approaches to Global Challenges: Moving from 'Dialogue Fatigue' to Dialogic Change Processes: A Working Paper." It addresses the notion of "dialogue fatigue"--multi-stakeholder dialogue events that are perceived to lack openness and participation in decison-making.

News Story #1:

WORLD BANK'S CRITICS LOOK ASKANCE AT DIALOGUE
By Emad Mekay
April 27, 2005
Copyright 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service/Global Information Network IPS-Inter Press Service

A new forum launched by the World Bank to find common ground with its non-governmental critics appears to have highlighted rifts among the civil society organizations (CSOs).

Advocacy groups fell out over whether to take part in last week's meetings with the world's leading source of development loans for low-income and former Soviet countries. Some groups ultimately boycotted the sessions.

"Some CSOs see this particular event as whitewashing" designed to spruce up the bank's image, said Alnoor Ebrahim, an associate professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and co-author of the main report presented by civil society groups at the meetings. "Whether it's true or not is not, (it's) the crucial issue because the perception still remains."

Groups boycotting the World Bank-Civil Society Global Policy Forum issued a statement saying signs that the exercise was no more than a public relations gimmick included the absence from the invitation list of critical groups that had taken part in previous such bank-sponsored exchanges.

"The absence from the invitation list of virtually all of the people involved in the World Bank's previous significant engagements with international civil society should concern those considering attending," said a statement from boycotters including U.S.-based Development GAP and 50 Years Is Enough Network, Thailand-based Focus on the Global South, British-based Bretton Woods Project and Christian Aid, Brazil's Rede Brasil, and India's Delhi Forum, among others.

"What the meeting does offer is the chance for the World Bank to escape accountability for its previous failings," they added.

Stephen Commins, senior civil society specialist at the bank, rejected the notion that the bank was seeking only to polish its image.

Click here to read the rest of the story on the GDP website.

News Story #2

NATIONAL CONFERENCE CALLS FOR DIALOGUE AMONG SAUDIS AND WITH OTHER FAITHS
June 19, 2005
Al-Jazirah website, Riyadh, in Arabic

The director of the King Abdul-Aziz Centre for National Dialog, Shaykh Salih Bin-Abd-al-Rahman al-Hasin has said at the Fifth National Conference on Intellectual Dialogue that "backwardness and laziness" prevent dialogue both among Saudis and with the outside world. However, what the Saudi newspaper reporting on the meeting called "the most powerful argument", a female professsor, Zakiyah Mani'a Abu-Saq, asserted that only one dialogue was necessary: "a dialogue with other confessions". The following is text of report by Ahmad Mu'ayd, published by Saudi newspaper Al-Jazirah website on 19 June:

Najran: The fifth National Conference of Intellectual Dialogue, which was held in Najran under the slogan "We and the other... a common vision on how to deal with world cultures," adopted a number of recommendations in its final statement, foremost of which are: calls to deepen and define religious terminology on how to interact and co-exist with the other; to teach in schools' curricula the skills of how to dialogue with and relate to the other; and to teach the new generation the right concepts, based on the teachings of the Prophet, may God prayer, blessing, and benediction be upon him, and his Al-Khulafa'a al-Rashidun [Rightly-Guided Successors] on how to interact with other cultures.

The statement also underlined the need to bolster national dialogue inside the country among the various confessions across the social spectrum before embarking on a dialogue with the other; to organize international dialogues with foreign intellectuals; to make full use of modern telecommunications technology, including satellite television channels, to initiate a dialogue with foreign civilizations and societies in a bid to give a better picture of Islam and the kingdom's achievements; and to encourage the culture of reading books by underpinning its role in securing contacts with other civilizations and giving a better picture of the kingdom's cultural and civilization achievements.

Click here to read the rest of the story on the GDP website.

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