Among dialogue practitioners few, if any, have continued to use group dialogue in the original format proposed in 1991 by David Bohm and his colleagues Peter Garrett and Donald Factor.
In the United States, despite major efforts by William Isaacs and his colleagues at his firm Dialogos to introduce this mode of “thinking together” in organizations, the method in its “pure form” did not take root. In Quebec, Canada, efforts were made to use Bohm dialogue with managers and professionals of the public health system. That early experience continued for a while but did not last. The difficulties encountered gave rise in North America and Europe to many adaptations of the original format in an effort to embody its basic principles in different ways. One might wonder, Is there still a place for the practice of Bohm dialogue in its original format?
© Marie-Ève Marchand, 2020
The World Needs Dialogue!
Two: Setting the Bearings
ISBN: 978-1916191242
Among dialogue practitioners few, if any, have continued to use group dialogue in the original format proposed in 1991 by David Bohm and his colleagues Peter Garrett and Donald Factor.* In the United States, despite major efforts by William Isaacs and his colleagues at his firm Dialogos to introduce this mode of “thinking together”† in organizations, the method in its “pure form” did not take root. In Quebec, Canada, efforts were made to use Bohm dialogue with managers and professionals of the public health system.‡ That early experience continued for a while but did not last. The difficulties encountered gave rise in North America and Europe to many adaptations of the original format in an effort to embody its basic principles in different ways. One might wonder, Is there still a place for the practice of Bohm dialogue in its original format?
In this paper I suggest that there is such a place in the context of educational programs aimed at facilitating, in individuals, the passage from conventional orders of consciousness to post-conventional orders—in other words, from an “either/or” mindset to a “both-and” way of thinking. (I will explore these ideas in more depth below.) The paper will describe how dialogue became part of a course for leaders and managers at Laval University in Quebec, how the impact of the course was measured and how these orders of consciousness relate to Bohm dialogue. Other ongoing initiatives will be presented in support of the observations that Bohm dialogue can be a very useful educational method, particularly when it is part of a curriculum that uses other means of sensitizing adult students to the role of presuppositions, or mental models, in perception and thinking, the interconnectedness of people and systems and the power of inquiry that is both thorough and caring.