Open Government Dialogue
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Teaching citizens how to facilitate and experience true dialogue
Engage facilitators to teach neighborhood and organizational representatives how to facilitate short-form dialogue processes / methods.

There is an existing network of Obama neighborhood organizers - add in other representatives from local nonprofits, businesses, local government, faith communities and other organizations.

To this group, teach proven dialogue methods for engaging conversation and discussion - forms of dialogue which can engage a group in 3 hours or less. Only certain forms work for this but they work very well. These trainings are best done over time to teach a skill, allow practice of the skill, return to share experiences and best practices, apply again: action learning.

Dialogue tools help individuals understand across differences, share experiences, listen for common threads in someone else's viewpoint, combine diverse ideas or cultural ways of looking at things to solve problems, gather data to see a full-systems perspective on an issue or opportunity, engage people, foster collaboration, and tap into rich knowledge and cultural diversity in the process.

Use professional facilitators who are skilled in these particular methods and who also understand how to teach. They can be the mentors to the community facilitators as a community of learning and practice is fostered.

Invitation is essential - invite across organization, region, age, ability, experience, culture, class - the key is to identify and train people who set ego aside in service to the group and its work - who invite and engage rather than direct.

Why Is This Idea Important?

The process, which is also the goal: Raise the capacity of individual Americans to engage others in dialogue - and to be able to listen well to consider another's experience. This raises the capacity of all Americans to be better neighbors - in their organizations, communities, and as world neighbors. Better family members. Better voters. Better world travelers, peace-builders, inquirers, co-workers, collaborators, idea generators - better citizens of the world...
Comments
heidi 8 months ago
Lisa, I too see the flaw or what can be missed in the practice of Democratic Majority Takes All voting in this country,indeed the minority voice (whoever they may be in any situation) often hold the wisdom that will make any decision that much better for the group as a whole! It is naive to belive that those who 'loose the vote' without the opportunity to epress their wisdom or what they need in order to come along will now just adopt the views of the winners... A dialogue and decision making process developed in South Africa by Myrna and Gregg Lewis takes these considerations fully into account.
rzkowalski 8 months ago
This makes me think of Milse Horton and his work at Highlander. I do think that I am not so much interested in trianing facilitators in dialogue as much as I am interested in helping people - American citizens - to think critically about government and their roles as citizens.
libertyferall 8 months ago
Lisa, I support your ideas of training people in neighborhoods and organizations in how to engage in productive forms of dialogues and foster collaboration. I especially like the perspective you bring of tapping into "rich knowledge and cultural diversity" in the process. Mentoring community facilitators is also an excellent idea.
The concept of inviting people to participate who can operate from a higher level than ego, of those who value serving their community more than self-gratification, is also a key concept to your proposal. I like this idea a lot of inviting a diverse group of people to work together to make sure that everyone gets included in the process.
debmarois 8 months ago
In addition to training citizen facilitators, I believe its important to train government staff from city, county and state level departments. Without this, public participation, engagement and collaboration can quickly go south. I've seen city-sponsored meetings that seek to gain public input end up in shouting matches that could have been avoided with very simple, basic facilitation skills. This in turn frustrates government representatives that have good intentions and leads to an attitude that citizen engagement is scary, not worth the trouble, etc. I would also add training in collaboration skills.
lisaheft 8 months ago
Yes - what I think Heidi is referring to is a comment I made on another website where majority vote is an interesting and useful thing in many circumstances - however I welcome those other ways of noting patterns, inviting input and making decisions where even a single person's idea or voice can be valued - as a single person's idea can sometimes be the one that shifts our whole way of thinking. Some of my favorite tools of dialogue also include this ability to honor single different viewpoints while at the same time inviting the group to note its common threads and patterns.

Rzkowalski - In a way I am glad that you are not as interested in what I am interested in - because you are *so* interested in another aspect of citizen engagement. If each of us contributes to our community and country in those ways we care so deeply about, we can create such positive change. Indeed, I'm guessing you already have.

And libertyferall - thank you for your thoughts and support of this idea. You are so articulate in underlining the elements and the values I was identifying that approach capacity building for listening and dialogue in a way that engages interconnection, co-learning and diversity...
lisaheft 8 months ago
Hear hear, Deb. I heartily agree. Really good facilitation does not make apparent the pre-work and careful thought about objectives, context, design and choice of appropriate dialogue tool that goes into supporting the success of a meeting, discussion or forum. However there are lessons learned that can be shared, tips and tools for helping people navigate through complex issues and emotions, and more lessons learned about the 'what-ifs' and 'when-not-to's'. I think anyone in a convenor role can gain so much from learning about how to facilitate or from working in partnership with a facilitator.
Greg Elin 8 months ago
Excellent idea. The web is making public dialogue easier. Wise practices and appropriate behavior needs to be taught and modeled.

Wouldn't it be great to have demonstration conversations across the country and at various conferences where people are exposed to how to take advantage of new participation sites.

Greg Elin
http://twitter.com/gregelin
hina 8 months ago
Thanks Lisa for your great work and ideas. They very necessary for open government and a well functioning government to be possible. Dialog goes a long way to connect "strangers" and help them hear and see each other's uniqueness.
flomarm 8 months ago
This is a great idea, but the implementation will be difficult. However, any effort to get citizens more engaged in a thoughtful way deserves all the effort we can muster. Too often we are caught up in "group-think" or "partisan-speak" and miss the opportunity to improve an idea or initiative. Kudos!
Debra Bryant 8 months ago
Do a search in Google on "Government Wealth" then if you are inclined, support this man that has provided this great service for us that make up the USA. We need volunteers to audit their city, county, state, etc...
sobi 8 months ago
Critical thinking and dialog training are both important concepts. I wish people had a firmer grasp on both.


I do not think that dialog training should be combined with political action meetings. That is a strategy used in the libertarian party, and they all parrot each other.

In a partisan atmosphere, dialog training would quickly morph into persuasion and recruitment training and operate as a source of politically-designed answers. That does not foster conversation. It closes ears and minds.
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