Who's written what?

[Michael Briand]

I've posted this request under two other index headings and haven't had any replies, so I thought I'd try it here. My apologies if you've read it previously .

I would like to start compiling a comprehensive collection of sources relating to dialogue and deliberation: books, articles, monographs, manuscripts, etc. My intent is to create highly informative abstracts or summaries of the best.

The works can be by scholars, practitioners, or others. They can be intended for a scholarly, practitioner, or general audience. The topics can be broad or narrow. They can address dialogue or deliberation directly, or they can discuss matters to which D or D is pertinent but only implied.

In short, if you've read something and consider it germane to and valuable for your thinking about and practice of D &D, I'd like to know about it.

It would help immensely if, when recommending a piece, you could provide two or three sentences about it. Citations or information about where the original can be found would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Michael

[Wally Clausen]

Michael -- I applaud your intentions and plans, and would like to contribute. Also, I can imagine reasons why you'd like everybody to send items with a couple of sentences to you, without regard for what's already on your table. But time being what it is (limited), I'd be more on board if there was a way I could see what was on the table, how it was grouped, etc. Then I'd be happy to add new items, suggest new categories, and/or to add my comments about existing items that I know something about.

Best, Wally
_________________
Wally Clausen
Clausen Associates -- Consultant
Partners of the Americas -- Volunteer
781-894-0793 Phone/Fax

[Michael Briand]

Good suggestion, Wally. I'll try to put something together to help folks think about the pieces they consider seminal, influential, or formative in their work. I was hoping, though, that I could proceed a bit more inductively and comprehensively by asking people for suggestions than by relying on my own (necessarily limited) exposure to the wealth of writing that's out there.

For example, off the top of my own head I would cite Fisher and Ury's Getting to YES, an article by Friedman on Martin Buber titled "Healing Through Meeting," a paper by John Burton that grounds his approach to conflict resolution in Maslow's theory of human needs, Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism, Bellah et al.'s Habits of the Heart, MacIntyre's After Virtue, Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, Yankelovich's Coming to Public Judgment, Saunders's Sustained Dialogue, and so on.

As you can see, the longer the list of "must-reads" gets, the easier it becomes to start categorizing them. The more folks offer their own lists, the better my initial framework will be.

Thanks again, Wally, for your suggestion.

Michael

[Wally Clausen]

Michael -- This post, I'll try to be helpful. The following is a very brief annotation I prepared a year-plus ago for somebody with absolutely no prior acquaintance with dialogue (or deliberation) concepts. For this list, it is somewhat glib and ham-handed. It reflects my comfort with list members' tolerance that I put it here without editing. I think the first four would be on the shortlist of anybody working in this field today, although none are as "basic" as those you cite.

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Selected dialogue books, described and contrasted very briefly, with some consideration of who they might be suited for or appeal to.

The Magic of Dialogue - Transforming Conflict into Cooperation, by Daniel Yankelovich, is a good, relatively brief treatment that covers the ground, and sets dialogue primarily in domains that "ordinary people" can relate to. And Yankelovich is a long-respected figure in sociology and public life. He references David Bohm, but is pretty practical.

Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, by William Isaacs, is longer and probably the broadest and most ambitious of the works by Bohm-based dialogue aficionados. It's richer and more academic than Yankelovich's, and would probably put off folks who were not pretty interested to begin with. Isaacs knew Bohm, and is affiliated with the MIT systems thinking tradition, Senge's work, etc.

Dialogue -- Rediscover the Transforming Power of Conversation, by Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard, presents dialogue in the language and with the methods of OD, human relations, and those sorts of traditions. It's lighter than Isaacs and more touchy-feely than either Isaacs or, certainly, Yankelovich. But it's an interesting mix of material, and has an engaging front end and back end.

On Dialogue, by David Bohm, edited by Lee Nichol, is one of several books written by Bohm or assembled from his writings. He was a major league quantum physicist who felt he had discovered some new truths about how everything works, and linked up with folks such as Krishnamurti to bridge Western and Eastern thought on these matters. Pretty heady stuff.

The Essential David Bohm, edited by Lee Nichol, is just out, and is an organized collection of Bohm's work, with each piece introduced by a 1/2 to 1 page blurb by Nichol. It gathers a spectrum of Bohm in one place -- but, judging from a workshop experience with Nichol, he may be pursuing his own interpretations and priorities as well.

Dialogue at Work -- Making talk developmental for people and organizations, by Nancy Dixon, is a short and well written treatment of different dialogue traditions that influence how we might think about the role and architecture of conversation in organizations. It breaks the Bohmian "lock" by adding other theorists -- Argyris, whose work Dixon has studied in depth; Paolo Freire, the liberation philosopher and educator (Pedagogy of the Oppressed); Jack Mezirow, an educator and champion of reflective practice; and the Johnson brothers, who work with learning, cooperation, and social interdependence, rooted in the work of Morton Deutsch.

Turning to One Another -- Simple conversations to restore hope to the future, by Margaret Wheatley, is a short, inspirational, artsy resource-material sort of book intended to proselytize and support the notion of people getting together in dialogue. It's a different level and type of beast. Wheatley is a guru of a certain type, and sometimes the name -- and an emotional entre like this book's approach -- are what's needed.

(This conversation/thread should probably be moved to a different location -- since check in and say hello doesn't really capture it.)

Best, Wally
_________________
Wally Clausen
Clausen Associates -- Consultant
Partners of the Americas -- Volunteer
781-894-0793 Phone/Fax

[Michael Briand]

This is great, Wally. Just the kind of start I was hoping for. Thank you.

NOTE: Per Wally's suggestion, let's continue the thread of this conversation under the heading "Exploring Thoery and Research." -- Michael