How to do a Dialogue Evening
When we started with the Dialogue Evenings we followed an intuition, namely the intuition that dialogue can be something to the transitions and challenges we as a local and global society face these days. In the last years we have done more than 20 Dialogue on different topics and with different groups. If you want to read more about why we believe Dialogue is crucial for the times we live in, read this blog. However, In this section we’d like to elaborate more on how one makes a Dialogue Evening.
Creating and Facilitating a Dialogue Evening is an Art and is a learning by doing process. It cannot be planned or prepared for all the emerging questions, issues, unknowns and possible possibilites. An inner presence and openness is crucial. You can read and have all the knowledge in the world about dialogue, but this will not necessarily help you when you are in front of a group. Facilitating Dialogue comes with practice and each Dialogue has its own dynamics and flow that will unfold. It's important that you take part in Dialogue Evenings or in Dialogue Learning days before you facilitateyour own Dialogue. If you are burning with a question its advised to have experienced a Dialogue Evening or a Dialogue Learning day. Advised is to faciliate it together with someone else. If its your first one’s please work with someone who is more experienced. We also ask you to reach out to the Dialogue Circle to make sure there is a person who can support you along the process.
A cohe Dialogue Evening follows specific principles and approaches. Amongst those are:
The topic evolves around one of the SDG´s
To make space to see behind the symptom and let answers emerge between us. This is a radical shift to the often known approach to solve problems and search for THE right answer.
We follow the 4 principles of Dialogue
We believe that each conversation shifts the whole system - sometimes very subtle - sometimes directly.
You can read the full version here.
A Dialogue Evening starts with someone asking themselves a question. A question that burns, hurts and feels intense. A question that goes beyond the person him/herself, hence he/she wishes to call in his/her community (open or a specific group) and look at this question in a Dialogue Evening Setting to come to a broader understanding, reflect deeper and sense into possible other pathways.
From this point on the Dialogue Evening process has 4 phases:
Phase 1: Connect with host and ask the powerful questions.
The host is the person who holds the question, and who participates fully in the Dialogue Evening as a participant. The facilitator is the person who holds the space and facilitates the dialogue.
The host is the catalyser of the event. As facilitator you are there to serve the hosts desire for Dialogue, and to create a unique event together.
There needs to be some deepening conversations taking place long before the event. Its important to ask some unusual and also powerful questions to help the host to find the right nerve, topic and own question for the dialogue. We collected these question in the document you find underneath. The idea is to either giving these questions to the host to fill out, or ideally to have a conversation where you ask the host directly, like an interview and help peel the the question to its essence.
Concrete tools to use in this phase:
Questionaire for hosts
Phase 2: Plan the Dialogue
When one plans a Dialogue it is easy to get trapped in the WHAT. “What is the program? What are the perfect exercise? What is the timing? and who is doing what?”. Preparing for a Dialogue Evening means not just to make a perfect prepared and nice workshop with exercises. No, it is about preparing a field (With “field” we mean both the field of the participants, the field of our own host/facilitator relationship, and our inner field as well the larger field this question is related to).
The attitude one needs to embody to do this is to feel and engage with the tension behind the question in the dialogue ourselves. To become aware of the tensions that the host experiences and lays at the root of his/her calling forth a Dialogue Event.As a facilitatorfeel into the tensions and dilemmas that exist in the collective society as well and become aware of the different dynamics, patterns and perspectives that exist. Use this to formulate powerful questions and to get a better sense of the red thread and foundation of the Dialogue Program.
Besides planning the Dialogue program you will also support the host to reach out with a powerful invitation. The participants are the soul of the event, whoever shows up are the right people, but the more diversity one manages to get into the room, the more rich and impactful the dialogue can become. Therefore makes sense to be strategic about whom to invite.
Concrete tools to use in this phase:
Invitation example and template
Phase 3: Facilitate the Dialogue
The most important tool during the evening is the understanding of the 4 principles (insert link to blog), and to know well the Dialogue Guidelines. The guideline includes 6 points:
The I perspective:
Stay concrete, personal and particular. Speak about experiences and concrete situations rather than concepts and abstractions. Claim your perspective as your perception by using “I….”. Stay in your personal role, and Include yourself in the problem you are speaking about (and in the solution). Listen to your inner voice, speak when you are moved, but dont speak if you are not moved.
Empathic listening:
Listen with the heart open. Can you become the person you are listening too. Ask yourself how it might be to be him or her. This way of listening helps the other person to stay authentic and real (The material we wanna work with in dialogue is authentic human being with stories and experiences) Listen with more than your brain, not just to the words spoken, but to more than that (associations, feelings in yourself, atmospheres)
Full presence
Giving your full presence to the dialogue. Right here right now what is present in you and in the space? We sit with each other and try to be present for the people around us. Let others change us, instead of us trying to change the world)
Slowing down and speak to the middle
Embrace the silent moments. Time to be silent, think, reflect, observe. Talking stick helps to create a safe frame. When a talking stick is used, it is a natural way to help group members to slow down.
Replace advise with curiosity
Avoid problem solving. Normally when we go into spaces, we are immediately problem solving, we cannot help it. Lets try not to, and stay with an open curiousity.
Talking a risk
Lean into what feels intense, engaging with and acknowledging our own inner tension is needed. Tension is the point of creation. share the truth about what is going on, what you see.
Concrete tools to use in this phase:
Phase 4: Evaluate and learn
Cohe undertakes activities that are designed to enable personal and collective transformation. Long-term, these activities aim to bring about social transformative change. It is therefore imperative that all cohe activities and projects are evaluated and harvest to ensure that cohe is able to demonstrate its impact on individuals, groups and, ultimately, society. Without this, cohe will struggle to know whether the time and other resources spent on activities have really made a difference, and it will be difficult to know how change has occurred, and how much can be attributed to cohe, and how much would have happened without cohe’s input.
Therefore, after the event it is important to send the participants a follow up email with a short questionnaire.
It is as well important for the host and facilitator to fill out their own evaluation framework.
Concrete tools to use in this phase:
example of an evaluation form for the participants .
a framework for host/facilitator evaluation
Needed time:
Phase 1: 4 hours
Phase 2: 6 hours
Phase 3: 6 hours
Phase 4: 4 hours
Written by Sidsel Andersen