Author’s note: I recently coached participants at a retreat held for executives and leaders from around the world. Over multiple coaching sessions, I saw a pattern emerge. These leaders and executives had a solid knowledge of the foundations of dialogue, studied communication skills and negotiation tactics, and regularly collaborated with other organizations. However, as each person brought their leadership challenge, I saw a pattern emerge. When conflict escalated, they fell into a strong right-wrong pattern.
One leader described a conflict that began when the head of an organization he was collaborating with yelled at him during a public meeting. “You don’t do that to me. He needs to apologize,” he stated to me repeatedly. As he expressed bewildered surprise that this even happened, he also shared more deeply his conviction that the other leader was bad and didn’t have any emotional intelligence. His attempts to initiate dialogue went nowhere because they began with his insistence on an apology from that leader.
Without an overarching framework to make sense of the other’s behaviour, to understand what was truly important to themselves, and to guide future interactions, these leaders resorted to entrenched judgmental positions that seemed intractable. As you’ll see below, I’ve also succumbed to this pattern of judgment that results in ineffective dialogue. I developed the Authentic Dialogue framework to help me transcend these deeply conditioned patterns.
In How to Have Antiracist Conversations, I guide readers through the steps of the Framework, including the inner work necessary for effective Dialogue that these leaders weren’t doing on their own. We need the clarity of that inner work in order to set our dialogues about conflict up for success.
Over the years, I’ve witnessed and even engaged in numerous conversations that weren’t productive. One of the trainers from whom I first learned Nonviolent Communication was a Global Majority person who integrated an awareness of power and privilege in their work and inspired me deeply. I was determined to support them whenever possible and brought them in to work on other projects with me.
Over time, I was dismayed to realize that despite our shared passion for an antiracist lens in Nonviolent Communication teaching and our shared identity as Global Majority people, we often experienced conflict.
I grew increasingly upset as our work styles didn’t match, from little issues like being on time to meetings, to larger issues such as how to share expenses and income. As our conflict grew, I attempted several times to talk about our challenges, but those attempts often ended with me listening while they expressed themselves.
I finally requested a facilitated dialogue to connect and come up with agreements about working together. Unfortunately, by the time that conversation happened, this colleague and I were both in so much distress about the relationship that it devolved into each of us trying to prove that the other was wrong.
We never worked together or spoke after that conversation. Had I known that different kinds of dialogues were possible, I would have approached our interactions quite differently.
Those unproductive conversations with my colleague demonstrate several places where dialogue often fails. Initially, I was afraid to speak honestly with them about how I was impacted by their not following through with agreements or the demands they were making of me to support their goals. When I finally mustered the courage to share how I was feeling about our relationship, I did so without full awareness of what I wanted out of that conversation.
We often don’t know, even deep within ourselves, why we’re seeking dialogue. Without that clarity, we can’t ask for what we really need. When we engage in Authentic Dialogue, we aim to do so with clarity on three elements:
- Am I truly seeking dialogue?
- Why is this dialogue important to me?
- What am I seeking from the other person?
Without an understanding of these pieces, there’s a good chance that the conversation we seek to have will at best be unproductive and at worst lead to greater disconnection like mine did.
The 4 components of Authentic Dialogue
The consciousness
Authentic Dialogue is grounded in a firm commitment to several principles. First, we hold the creation of Beloved Community, in which everyone is valued and we work together so everyone can thrive, as our ultimate goal. Even if we’re unlikely to live in a time when the systems and structures around us reflect the values of Beloved Community, we aim now to operate in the world, as much as possible, in ways that do.
This commitment means that when a member of our community says or does something that is painful for us to experience, we strive to connect to their humanity, to see them as a welcomed community member and not someone we must oust.
The second principle of Authentic Dialogue supports us in connecting to the other’s humanity by reminding us that human beings are always attempting to meet needs, needs that we all have, in everything they do or say. When someone does something we don’t like, even something with a significant impact on us or on what we deeply care for, we can connect to their humanity by trying to understand the very human needs they’re attempting to meet, even as we let them know the actions they’re taking are too costly to us.
This stance invites us to hold the possibility that a person isn’t irreparably evil. Indeed, people who say or do things that are harmful, such as many actions emerging from white supremacy ideas or other oppressive beliefs, benefit from community intervention to stop them from committing further harm. This intervention can also guide them toward different actions that can better meet their and the community’s needs. No one, including those folks who say and do things that are harmful, is discarded.
The third principle of the Authentic Dialogue framework acknowledges that white supremacy beliefs and other ideologies have led and continue to result in systemic oppression of certain groups. These ideologies impact the ways in which people experience the world—what they pay attention to and, because of cognitive biases, what they’re even able to perceive. White supremacy culture may also impact the range of strategies people deem acceptable to meet their needs.
Acknowledging the existence of white supremacy thinking and other oppressive ideologies invites us to see the individual acting from these beliefs not as an enemy, but as someone also adversely impacted by these ideologies who will need support to see how these beliefs aren’t in the service of Beloved Community. We can hold boundaries and enact policies to prevent ongoing harm and to counter the effect of these ideologies, creating space while the multifaceted, challenging work of system change continues.
This leads into the fourth aspect of Authentic Dialogue consciousness—looking for solutions in support of our well-being and our collective liberation. In order to work towards Beloved Community, we search for inclusive solutions—ones that don’t leave anyone behind.
I can’t be truly liberated if any person is oppressed. This is in direct opposition to a central practice that emerges from white supremacy beliefs. We reject the prioritization, no matter the cost, of the needs of white people. Indeed, the idea that any group should be prioritized a priori over other groups is untenable. Instead, we work to understand everyone’s needs, Global Majority и white, and hold them all equally important.
As we search for solutions that truly allow all groups to thrive, we enhance our capacity to undo the effects and eliminate the causes of social oppression.
Inner work
As you can see, Authentic Dialogue starts before we actually engage in conversation with other people. In addition to reaffirming the elements of the consciousness of Authentic Dialogue, we take steps to do the internal work that makes it more likely that what we say and the strategies that we advance will be in alignment with that consciousness.
The inner work of Authentic Dialogue includes gaining clarity on what we’re experiencing, understanding which values we’re aiming to meet in the moment, and determining our purpose in asking for dialogue.
Gain clarity on your experience
Begin the inner work by clarifying your understanding of what happened.
What was the external observation? Notice your thoughts and judgments. What are you telling yourself about the other person or the situation? What stories do you have about who they are, what they stand for, what that signifies? Are they good/bad, are you safe/unsafe, and so on? These judgments can get in the way of us seeing the person and situation fully and reduce the likelihood that we’ll see them as part of our Beloved Community.
Instead, question these stories and judgments. Are there cognitive biases impacting what you perceive and what you pay attention to? Notice those biases and ask what other information you might be missing because of them. What would be a more complete picture of what is happening? Continue to acknowledge other observations that might be present. What memories or prior experiences did the event stimulate? What systemic patterns or impacts are now in your awareness, triggered by the external observation?
Connect to your values
As you connect to your observations, notice how they’re affecting and impacting your physical body. Scan your body for any sensations and emotions that arise in response to these observations. They provide crucial information that can help you understand what you value.
As you notice each sensation and emotion, ask yourself: “What need or value do I have that is stimulating this emotion right now? Am I having this reaction in response to that need or value being met or not met? What is important to me in this moment?”
People often have different responses to the same situation. Being clear on what you value is an essential aspect of Authentic Dialogues. This clarity will inform the next steps of the inner work as well as the actual dialogue.
Determine your purpose
Once we have more clarity on what happened, what is important to us and our emotions in relation to the event, we’re ready for the next step. From this place of self-understanding, ask yourself: What am I seeking from the other person? What is my purpose in requesting a dialogue? We might be looking to be heard about our experience, to experience a sense of healing, to support an understanding of what happened that encompasses multiple perspectives, and/or to find a solution that addresses what happened.
Getting clear on what we need and what we hope the dialogue will accomplish increases the possibility, should the dialogue happen, of attending to the needs that we have. This combination—clarity of observation, deep understanding of self, clarity of needs and clarity of purpose—allows us to take the caring and fiercely real stance that is the goal of Authentic Dialogue. Knowing what our purpose is allows us to choose our path through Authentic Dialogue.
Roxy Manning, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and a certified Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) trainer. She’s the author of How to Have Antiracist Conversations: Embracing Our Full Humanity to Challenge White Supremacy and the co-author with Sarah Peyton of the companion text, The Antiracist Heart: A Self-Compassion and Activism Handbook.
Отрывок из How to Have Antiracist Conversations: Embracing Our Full Humanity to Challenge White Supremacy (Berrett-Koehler Publishers).
изображения: Depositphotos
