Dialogue: The Essential Learning Tool
"What has become clear since we last met?

What is the area that, if you made an improvement, would give you and others the greatest return on time, energy, and dollars invested?

What is currently impossible to do that, if it were possible, would change everything?"1

In her book Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott shares tools for having authentic conversations—with ourselves and with others. The questions and tools she shares are aimed at getting to the true heart of the issue, so that the relationship and/or the performance can move forward. Isn’t this exactly what we are doing, as trainers? How much authentic dialogue is happening in the learning experiences you craft?

Facilitating a learning experience requires that we create space for reflection and new connections to emerge. The questions we craft, the context in which we frame them and our ability to truly listen to determine if real value shows up.

Many learning environments (and many work environments) lack meaning. When there is no depth and no connectivity, there is no value being generated. To create meaning, we have to move the conversation deeper. We have to be willing for something new and perhaps, unexpected, to show up.

Cheers,
Jeanine O'Neill-Blackwell
President/CEO, 4MAT 4BUSINESS

1. Scott, Susan. Fierce Conversations.