Lighting my (Dialogue) Fire
Lighting my (Dialogue) Fire
A short walk down my Dialogue memory lane
I was at a book store after college at a time when I was worried about climate change. I bought and read a book, The Necessary Revolution by Peter Senge. Roughly two decades later I remember being thrilled about the idea I encountered in it that in business it wasn't just the numbers or the marketing studies but the interpersonal dynamics and how we talk to and think together that matter too. For me business had nothing to do with the soft stuff. I had no work experience. I hadn't interned anywhere. Years later having spent time in businesses small and large, it's obvious to me that the interpersonal stuff matters a lot.
Senge became a sort of business guru of the Peter Drucker mold in the 90s with his book The Fifth Discipline. He went on to found the Society for Organizational Learning. Think retreats for business and non profit leaders.
I went on to read a few of Senge's books. The Fifth Discipline was still popular. He and a few others published one that was basically a podcast, before they existed, in book form called, Presence. It was just a conversation. I loved all these books. They all centered the soft stuff. Interpersonal dynamics, the heart, the whole self, higher purpose and meaning making, even love.
I started to read all the books in this little MIT-centered ecosystem of social-psyche-business thinkers and practitioners. Another one was Otto Scharmer. Scharmer did a PhD in, economics and afterwards, maybe as part of a post doc thing did this world tour of conversations. Also basically podcasts that he published the transcripts of. I think it was called thoughts on dialogue. Or the dialogue project or something like that. I've asked his Presencing Institute to put them back up but no response yet. These were profoundly deep conversations with some of the world's most profound business leaders and scientists and gurus. It was an epic and deep learning journey. It inspired me to read his book Theory U which I enjoyed but had a hard time following at the time and applying ever. That's probably why he has courses to master this world he's built. That said the book resonated a lot as a way of seeing the world.
Referenced somewhere in this little world was William "Bill" Isaacs. When he was doing a PhD at Oxford he showed up one night to a talk the physicist David Bohm was giving. I don't know if Isaacs was already focused on studying dialogue and I don't know if Bohm had already connected with the Indian guru Jiddu Krishnamurti already but the way I remember it is something organically emerged this night and the subsequent few nights Isaacs later wrote about as "dialogue".
What happened was, Bohm showed up to give a physics talk to a small group of people. As it unfolded it became a multidirectional conversation. It wasn't facilitated. It wasn't run by Bohm. It wasn't dominated by one person. It wasn't a fireside chat or interview. It was a slow and steady organic multi directional conversation with anyone asking and answering and extending questions.
It lit a fire for Isaacs who went on to finish his PhD relating to what happened this night, and later to write a book called Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together and start a training and consulting company called Dialogos. I went on to read his book, as many of Bohm's books as I could and even a few of Krishnamurti's books and talks and interviews. He's a guy who later became a friend and collaborator of Bohm's.
Reading these authors' work on dialogue lit a fire for me to do this kind of work. I was a year or two out of undergrad and boomeranging back home. Aimless AF. Lost. Confused. I wanted to do this work but I had no idea what that meant for me at the very beginning of my career. It seemed to me more like something you did later in your career. I wish I had a copy of it now but around this time I wrote Bill Isaacs a letter. I think I sent it to an address I found in the book or to the Dialogos office's address I found on their website. I wonder what I wrote then. Likely the tl;dr was, might you be able to employ me please?
I got no response, maybe. I moved around for the next few years so who knows maybe I did! But I certainly never ended up employed there. As I was writing my letter I likely signed over my email address. Some 15 years or so later I get invited to participate in Zoom dialogues Dialogos was putting on. Then I almost did a project with them. But that's not really what this is about. As I reflect on how my fire got lit for dialogue I wonder why there aren't more hints of this work in the mainstream?
I found this body of work and learned of these practitioners and consultants and trainers and teachers and it was many years ago. I find I'm still alone in having found them. How are these people and ideas not even a little bit more mainstream? Are the circles the people move in insulated? Are they not online? No podcasts? No TikTok accounts? Or is it because they're not sensational. Choosing to let people find them organically. It's seems more and more obvious that "virality" is nothing but a flash in the pan.
Over a series of posts I'm going to catch-up with these long lost friends, content creators, thinkers and writers. Not to make anyone go viral but to reremember for myself what this group put out there. If it's evolved at all. What I took from it. Maybe others will benefit from it too.
Podcast (Coming soon)
Workshops (Coming soon)
Reach out to me just for fun! - tommy@extragrad.com