Skip to main content

Unlock Your Dialogue Skills

Image
By Karmen Š

Do you want to … Talk to your friends and colleagues with openness and curiosity? ... Understand other people better? ... Get to know your neighbours better or do a project with them? ... Get along with your partner on a joint vacation? ... Have a pleasant time when your children and grandchildren visit you? ... Or you want to be able to take part and contribute at local community events?

We warmly invite you into the world of conversation!

Dialogue brings us closer together and helps us to learn from each other, get to know each other and better understand each other’s needs. Dialogue is not always easy, nor does it always come naturally to us.

We encourage you to practise and not give up even if things don’t go perfectly.

The journey to dialogue is good to start by looking at some terms and concepts. When we understand what dialogue is about, we can avoid conflict and promote communication. Partners in project DIAL (Dialogue in Adult Education) believe that:

Dialogue is a genuine exchange of our views and experiences that can generate new insights and help us see different perspectives. By listening to each other we deepen our understanding and connection with one another. After taking part in a dialogue we might find ourselves change and grow. In a good dialogue we feel good, it creates bridges and makes cooperation easier.

The main principles of a dialogue important to observe are the following:

  • Anyone can participate and share their story equally
  • We approach dialogue with curiosity and openness to others.
  • There are no right or wrong answers
  • We are respectful towards each other
  • Everyone has a part in creating a safe and confidential atmosphere

Dialogue is built on four basic skills. These skills are:

  1. self-reflection
  2. listening
  3. talking
  4. suspending your reactions

Have you ever had a conversation that went really well? Can you think about things that made it so good? Was it the information you shared or the way you felt during your conversation? What do you think makes a good dialogue?

***********

P.S. The importance of dialogue extends of course beyond the personal to the workplace and our democracies. This is why it's vital to spread it as widely as possible. Feel free to download Dialogue for all: A Short Guide to Unlocking Your Dialogue Skills.


This blog is based on Dialogue for all: A Short Guide to Unlocking Your Dialogue Skills. Authors of the text and guide: Aleksandra Czetwertyńska, Katarzyna Werner, Marion Fields, Milla Holmberg, Karmen Šemrl, Bernarda Potočnik, Ioannis Dontas, Manolis Chrysostalis, Andrea Zalabaiova, Giuliana Pitino.

Comments

  1. Karmen ŠMarch 6, 2024 at 4:30 PM

    For me personaly suspending the reactions is themost difficult part

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bernarda, SloveniaMarch 10, 2024 at 5:32 PM

    Creating an opinion is fuelled by emotions which makes it so difficult for us to stay calm, especially when we disagree with somebody. So, I guess suspending our reactions is not so much a matter of what we think about something, as it is a matter of how we feel about it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. IoannisMarch 14, 2024 at 2:49 PM

    I personally focus on the element of respect. We should show respect to the others in order to receive respect from them. The element of respect includes listening to the others, talking in a good manner to the others, suspending reactions so not to offense the others and, of course, self-reflection before talking in order to maintain the quality of the dialogue. So, it is actually a dominant element. Don't you agree?
    But, what happens in reality?
    In reality, we generally demand respect but not offering it at the same time. Simply because we have turned to demanding beings and not offering ones. For everything. We keep being driven by our XL-sized ego of ours and this does not let us be humble and respectful...
    Rule-based dialogue can be proven to an excellent tool to exercise ourselves in minimizing this unruly ego of ours; to self-improve. We should try it, every day. In the morning, at noon and in the evening. Like an antibiotic! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dialogue, the art of breathing in and living in a European democracy

By
  I was browsing through quotes about the role of dialogue in democracy. I came across this one from the late American journalist William Greider : “ Democracy begins in human conversation. A democratic conversation does not require elaborate rules of procedure or utopian notions of perfect consensus. What it does require is a spirit of mutual respect – people conversing critically with one another in an atmosphere of shared regard. ” It's almost time for the European elections, and we live in a very divided world. Have we lost the ability for dialogue? This was, actually, the same question we asked when we set out to apply for our project. We wanted to bring dialogue to everyone in all kinds of settings to prevent polarisation. Schools, workplaces, voluntary organisations or even blocks of flats are all micro-democracies because they bring people together to decide on matters that unite them and that are meaningful. This means that we need dialogue skills for democratic participat...
1 comment
Read more

The Seaside Philosophical Chat

By
One evening recently, I found myself on a familiar beachside promenade while visiting friends in small coastal city. What actually made this evening special was the unexpected dialogue between two elderly gentlemen, Yiannis and Michalis, who had been friends for decades. I knew them for decades but not too well. So, while passing by them I tried to overheard them. They occupied a weathered bench overlooking the serene sea, sharing stories from the past as it seemed to me, and indulging in a spirited debate. Yiannis, a twinkle in his eye, mused, 'Michalis, have you ever wondered why we chase happiness, when it's right here in moments like this?' Michalis, his face etched with wisdom, replied, 'Ah, Yiannis, it's in the chase that we find purpose. Happiness is the quest, not just the destination.' Their dialogue touched upon life's fundamental questions—happiness, the passage of time, and the meaning of a life well-lived. It was a conversation steeped in philos...
5 comments
Read more

“When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME”—Oscar Wilde

By
We constantly form judgements about people. When meeting somebody anew there might be a sense of good chemistry among us so that we can immediately connect. Or we might feel reserved towards them, for no good reason. A kind of gut feeling is telling us, beware. This is human and not easy to avoid. Judgments are helpful when we need to quickly assess a certain situation: “Am I safe/welcome here? Do I want to invest my energy in this project/community? Can I trust this person or not ...?” And of course, they might just as well be misleading, formed on the basis of our experience that has nothing to do with the person we have just met. I remember my friend telling me that she could not trust a man with a beard. Needless to say, she proved herself wrong in many cases and yet, she caught herself in mistrust every time she met a man with a beard. After some introspection she realised that men with a beard reminded her of her math teacher who made her feel miserable in the fifth grade, by...
3 comments
Read more