Dialogue can be defined as a combination of mindful communication, equitable transaction, empathic conversation and real meeting and is believed “to produce thoughts that neither party in a relationship-nor any participant in a group, team, or network – could have produced alone.” (Eisenberg, et al., 2009, p.50-51). Promoting dialogue in teams will lead to new ideas and open communication, which lead to integrity in workplace. However, it faces challenges like people’s mindless communication, inability to express their opinions and perspectives, people having assumptions of what is “right” and inability to have a genuine communication. In this essay, I will discuss some benefits and challenges associated with promoting dialogue in teams.

Dialogue is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “An exchange of ideas and opinions” (Merriam- Webster.com 2013). In a dialogue, members of the team freely express their assumptions, opinions and perspectives. Thus, a pool of distinctive ideas are formed and lead to new ideas that an individual could not have come up with alone.
Consider a team of five with members from five different countries and backgrounds. When they get engaged in a dialogue, the participants would bring very distinct perspectives and opinions to the table, which will make the team members to view the matter from a very different perspective and help the team to think of new ideas. I have personally experienced the wonders of a dialogue in one of my high school group project when I was in a group which consisted of kids from different countries. While conversing about the subject, we learned that our living environment and culture shaped our views on the same subject quite uniquely. During the project each member of the group learned more about the subject and more importantly we managed to come up with a new idea that teams with kids with similar backgrounds could not come up with. Perhaps, that is why the schools and organizations highly encourage multicultural teams.
It is said that, when the team members are engaged in dialogues, they could feel closer to each other and have more open communication. As dialogue progresses, participants start developing feelings of friendship towards each other even when they do not have much in common ground (Senge, 1990, p.4). In his book, The Fifth Discipline - The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization, Peter Senge (1990) states that people interact with strangers differently than they would do with people in close relationships like friends and colleagues. What Senge (1990) probably means by the feeling of friendship is that, the team members to start to accept each other as colleagues, and open up slowly, joke around and talk without hesitation and feeling of any pressure.
In organizations, especially in Asian countries, most superiors are viewed as some people from lower ranks should not argue with and converse much with. Thus, having members of team view their superiors as colleagues is important to create relaxed environments for conversation. Relaxed environments like those of with friends allow participants of the dialogue play with ideas and not be afraid of the judgments from peers or superiors.
Gerard and Teurfs (1997) and Senge (1990) suggest that dialogues can lead to more open communication, which in turn, lead to even broader pool of opinions and self-expression. They support the idea of Eisenberg et al. (2009) that dialogues transform individuals’ behavior towards the well-being of the community, such as enable individual work with integrity. Senge (1990, p4) states that “treating each other as colleagues acknowledges the mutual risk and establishes the sense of safety in facing the risk” which, I believe, can be interpreted as one starts to feel as part of a whole once he/she accepts others as colleagues. Similarly, Gerard and Teurfs (1995) note that dialogues transform organizational culture as “collaborative and cooperative attitudes begin to replace attitudes of unyielding individualism” with continuing exercise of dialogue.

On the other hand, Eisenberg et al. (2009, p.51) point out dialogue is rarely observed in today’s workplace due to people’s mindless communication, inability to express their opinions and perspectives, people having assumptions of what is “right” and inability to have a genuine communication. For a dialogue to be much more than a mere conversation, participants shall experience a 'relaxed, non-judgmental curiosity, with the aim of seeing things as freshly and clearly as possible' (Bohm, 1996, p. ix). Yet, people often fail to communicate consciously, with a purpose (Eisenberg et al., 2009, p 41). Therefore, mindless communication becomes a barrier for exploring of new ideas. Eisenberg et al. (2009, p.42) presents results from a research work on how to make people act more mindful, and it states that people become more mindful when they “sense a danger, are confused or perceive a negative outcome. They failed to show other situations where people can become more mindful. In my opinion, human beings can also become more mindful if the underlying subject really matters to them or if there is a reward attached to it. Danger, confusion or perceived negative outcome cannot keep people engaged for long. Thus, team members need positive grounds to stay engaged and, consequently, become more mindful. Perhaps, mindless communication is not such a big challenge next to people’s inability to express their opinions and perspectives. This can especially be observed in organizations with tall organizational structure. In most Asian countries, hierarchy is a big challenge for equitable transaction. Although encouraging minorities and people of lower-ranks to voice their opinions is theoretically correct, what Eisenberg et al. (2009) failed to realize is that it may be unacceptable in certain countries. In some organizations, people of power do all the talk and employees of lower ranks are expected to just go along with them. This is one of the biggest challenges to effective dialogue. Let us assume that all team members are not afraid to express themselves and they even have a mindful conversation. However, it still does not guarantee the effectiveness of a dialogue as some people come with assumptions of what is “right” and not readily accept any other viewpoint. This could ultimately block the generation of new ideas.
Multi-cultural teams often face this challenge as every culture has its own unique definition of what is “right”. However, if members can eliminate this challenge and have an emphatic conversation, the team members “become open to diversity”; subsequently, experience a collective learning and get a shared meaning as evidenced by Cecile Ouerubin’s study (2011, p.19). She conducted a research study on real company workers with the help of Glenna Gerard from The Dialogue Group to learn about the benefits of dialogue for organizations.
As mentioned earlier a participants’ inability to have a genuine communication is another challenge for a dialogue. In their article “Dialogue: Life and Death of the Organization”, The Gergens and Barrett (2004) support Eisenberg et al.’s idea that one can have a mindful communication, equitable transaction, empathic conversation yet it all can be hypocritical. The authors of “Dialogue: Life and Death of the Organization” argue that response in dialogue can be an “outcome joint-actions” (p.42), in other words, even if the person does not feel in the certain way, the discourse can be altered with the words and actions of other participants. As Eisenberg et al. (2009) stressed “dialogue as real meeting is difficult to achieve” but if teams can overcome this challenge as well as the other three; dialogue can do wonders for organization that no one individual could have achieved.

In conclusion, promoting dialogue in teams is one of the essential activity to reach common goals by producing new ideas that no individuals could have created alone.
When team members are engaged in a dialogue, they could feel closer to each other and start to have open communication freely. However, teams could face some challenges like members unable to express easily their opinions and viewpoint, mindless communication and not ready to accept others viewpoints which can eventually obstruct producing new ideas and open communication.
Therefore, participants need to be positive thinking and open-minded and the team must be able to overcome those challenges to have an effective dialogue.

REFERENCES LIST:

* Bohm, D. (1996). On Dialogue. London: Routledge.

* Eisenberg, E.M., Goodall, H.L. & Tretheway, A. 2009, ‘Defining Organizational

* Communication’, in, Organizational Communication: Balancing Creativity and Constraint, 6th edn, Bedford/St. Martin’s, Boston, pp. 26-56. * Gerard, G. and Teurfs, L., 1995, "Dialogue and Organizational Transformation," in Community Spirit: Renewing Spirit and Learning in Business, Kazimierz Gozdz, ed. (San Francisco: New Leaders Press, 1995), pp. 143-53.

* Gergen, K.J., Gergen M.M, and Barrett, F.J., London: SAGE, 2004. Dialogue: Life and Death of the Organization Pages: 39-59

* Senge, P.M. (1990, 2006). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday.

* Ouerubin, C., (2011) Dialogue: Creating Shared Meaning And Other Benefits for Business. 6480 Country Club Dr., #6 Rohnert Park, CA 94928

* Merriam Webster Dictionary (source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialogue)