The Subtle Dynamics of a Dialogue by Manoj Sharma

January 27, 2007

Data is based on what’s going on and through our everyday working senses there is too much going on to make sense of.

Information is what you’re paying attention to from the vastness of data.

Filters are what information goes through. As a professional coach you need to be aware of the filters of the past, culture, background, upbringing, context, roles, religion, status, ideology, values, “okays”, and so on.

Interpretations are not the truth they are your truth, based on the information you paid attention to, filtered and created sense of.

Evaluations are the conclusions you have come to based on your interpretations. Upon deep examination you will find your evaluations are mostly if not almost always based on your self-interest at some critical or all level. If you examine them with an open mind you’ll discover your true self-interests.

This is happening all the time be it in monologues or dialogues.

As a professional coach you first need to appreciate that you too do this. Next you need to recognize that others do it too regardless of them being aware or unaware of it.

How do you get beyond this?

Go back to the first four steps of DifferWorld’s Professional Coaching Techniques – Listening, Questioning, Dialoguing and Crystallizing.

Listen Actively for intention, context, content, feeling and meaning.

This will allow you to engage in a meaningful dialogue in which you as a professional coach initiate “listening for people to speak” and “speaking for people to listen” thus creating a shared space in which a meaningful dialogue can take place. To get to this point you may be first required to go through the phases of debates, disagreements and discussions.

Add to this the power of asking Clarifying, Specifying and Exploring Questions to create a full and accurate picture that will be closer to the truth as opposed to your or another’s truth.

Finally, allow this new picture to form in your mind thus allowing your mind to have a “Working Crystallization of the Intention”.

Posted by Manoj Sharma | Filed Under Manoj Sharma 

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