Conversation = collaboration

I've been reading and thinking about collaboration for a long time, and recently have been interested in how other areas articulate aspects of collaboration, specifically people who organize meetings and facilitate conversations.

While sometimes I am nervous about a level of corporate speak, or things wander to far into "fuzzy warm feeling places" for my taste, often there is a refreshing practicality and a removal of some of the mysticism ("the unspeakable creative force") that some in the arts can bring to the discussion.

And today this appeared in my feed:
"guidelines for dialogue" from facilitator Judy Brown by way of the Artful Manager:

• Speak from the heart and the moment, and from your own experience; listen from the community, from the collective;
• Listen without thinking about responding;
• Listen for information, not confirmation;
• Begin thinking in terms of "I wonder..." or "Where I am on this issue now is...;"
• Allow for silence; it may mean people are thinking, considering;
• Suspend assumptions and consider alternatives ones that might be just as useful;
• Assume that the ideas and observations of others come from a desire to contribute;
• Expect that ideas build upon each other even if they don't link logically one to the other;
• Remember that difference of opinion can be helpful, because it sharpens our understanding;
• Move away from conclusions and toward observations; notice what you are noticing, and what meaning you are making of it;
• Sometimes in communication, less is better, and slowly is fine.

from Learning Organizations: Developing Cultures for Tomorrow's Workplace, essay entitled ''Dialogue: Capacities and Stories" by Judy Brown.

And Misha starts today – which is very exciting and a pretty great way to think about how people work together.