Why Genuine Dialogue Is Key to Effective Workplaces

What missing ingredient keeps colleagues, workplace teams, committees and board from successfully reaching sound decisions that don't damage the working relationship?

Genuine dialogue.

Real dialogue drives effective decision making, and the quality of business decisions will determine not only how successful your organization is in the future, but also how satisfied and motivated your colleagues, employees and customers are. With "collaboration" and "win-win" now buzzwords for effective teams, it's your organization's ability to negotiate differences and build real dialogue that will determine whether you're able pay more than lip-service to these ideas.

The Art and Science of Genuine Dialogue

Creating genuine dialogue is the art of creating conversations that allow people's voices to be fully heard and understood. It's the science of transforming conflict into creativity and disagreement into opportunity.

Done right, it's not about sacrificing time efficiency in the name of "process." It's not about being touchy-feely or contrived. And it's definitely not about trying to make people just feel heard.

Genuine dialogue is about creating the conditions that allow real listening and understanding about a problem. It's about people being able to truly speak their minds, agree and disagree, and do it in a way that moves the group, organization or institution forward.

If you think that sounds risky, fear not. The real risk is in avoiding the important discussions you need to have. With the right approach, even the most complex problems and disagreements can be transformed into sound decisions. And far from damaging relationships, workplace conflict handled well actually helps build stronger work relationships.

Dialogue and Workplace Teams: Like Hand in Glove

Successful workplace teams and genuine dialogue have a lot in common — a future orientation, an ability to understand and act on complex problems, a willingness to disagree and use that disagreement as a path to better decisions and relationships. In a fast-moving workplace, genuine dialogue allows you to use your time effectively and avoid getting bogged down by indecision or the debris of poorly managed differences.

Get your free copy of Talking It Out in Ten, a worksheet and guide to help you think and prepare for your difficult conversations, by visiting http://lenski.com and clicking on Free Guide.

While there, look for more tips and resources on talking things out in the work and home relationships that matter most.

Dr. Tammy Lenski is a dialogue jump-starter, an expert at helping people talk out their differences and build stronger work and home relationships in the process, Tammy has helped individuals, work teams and entire organizations make their peace with conflict for almost two decades. Known for approaching sticky situations with an educator’s heart, professional mediator’s skill, and a creative’s instinct, she taps her background as an organizational leader, college professor, executive coach and mediator to serve clients who don’t just want to settle conflict but use it to transform their organization or themselves.

Tammy blogs about workplace conflict, coaching, and resolution at Tammy Lenski.

Other articles by Tammy Lenski, Ed.D

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