Sublime

If we keep meeting anger with anger, the world’s divisions will only escalate. Persuasion is a communication-based process. If we’re all just shouting so loudly that we can’t hear the other person, we can’t communicate.

Instead of launching right into your beliefs, listen carefully to what the other people in the discussion think. Ask constructive questions as well. Develop a good understanding of their positions, repeating back parts of their argument to ensure that you have complete comprehension. Only then should you interject your own thoughts, and you should

Think of the goal rather as “offering and discussing a possible description and purpose” for your conversation. In other words, the task of describing the problem and of setting purposes is itself a joint task.

The main point, however, is not to strive for some abstract ideal of coherence. It is rather for all the participants to work together to become sensitive to all the possible forms of incoherence. Incoherence may be indicated by contradictions and confusion but more basically it is seen by the fact that our thinking is producing consequences that w

Archetype 3: Speaking the Unspeakable Whenever members of an organization come together and have a conversation, there are actually two types of conversation going on. One is manifested in what people are saying publicly. The other is unfolding in each person’s head. Only a small portion of the most important content of those conversations (radical

Therefore, you have to watch out for the notion of truth. Dialogue may not be concerned directly with truth – it may arrive at truth, but it is concerned with meaning. If the meaning is incoherent you will never arrive at truth.

The productivity of a conversation is largely dependent on the permeability of its participants. In most cases, an informal conversation supports a more candid exchange with less defensiveness.