Listeners LO12367

Robert Seton (zuleika@seton.se)
Wed, 5 Feb 1997 10:25:05 +0200

Replying to LO12354 --
Abut the reply to LO12340

Dear Daron Sandbergh and others.

Daron you state that there is a difference between discussion and dialog
This is my point of wiev.

The basic idea in a discussion is that there are two different. often
opposite, points of view. As we normally want to be right we focus in our
listening process on the holes in the other persons argument - what4s
wrong. Then we fill in our own statements to prove that we are right. The
word "discussion" in itself means "take apart". This implies that focus in
a discussion is "me or you". It does not require much interest in the
other person or the subject, and not necessarily much contact with the
other person. We learn a lot about the subject and the different parts of
the subject.

In a dialog ( the word in itself means investigate ) we have a very high
interest in the other person as a whole system and the subject. The mental
state in a dialog is " we are in this together - "me and you". The contact
between the persons in a dialog is what keeps the persons together.
Contact works as glue. Our main interest in a dialog is not the parts,
arguments or statements in itself and whether they are right or wrong. Our
focus in a dialog is to investigate the relationship between the different
parts or arguments, how they fit together. This often leads us to
something new, a synthesis as you say Daron.

Discussion requires listening with mind.

Dialog requires listening with mind and hart.

Robert Seton from Sweden
zuleika@seton.se

-- 

zuleika@seton.se (Robert Seton)

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>