Reflecting on Dialogue Facilitation - Kati Tikkamäki and Mirja Hämäläinen

In this paper, we will describe a process of reflecting on facilitation that started in our workshop at the second The World Needs Dialogue! international conference organised by the Academy of Professional Dialogue in 2019. For this event, the papers are usually distributed to participants beforehand and, at the conference, dialogues are held on the topics of the papers. Our workshop proceeded in a reverse order. We invited participants to reflect on dialogue facilitation in the workshop without us providing any other reading than our invitation. After the conference, the reflection continued online in three Zoom meetings. This paper is a report of the whole process, including feedback from the participants on the reflection that we provide in this paper.

In addition to describing the process, we aim to describe the main contents of the participants’ reflections. However, including all the voices in full, and in any ‘objective’ manner, is not possible. We do not hesitate to acknowledge the fact that our personal interpretations of the reflections are inevitable. In addition, we will provide our own reflections on the process and the topics that came up in the dialogues. As we have different backgrounds (see ‘About the Authors’ at the end of the text) we hope, in a dialogic way, to make use of our approaches and perspectives rather than trying to come up with a common understanding of the process and the topics. We both are enthusiastic about promoting dialogue in working life and dialogue skills for future professionals and professionals in their working life.

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