Leading Libraries Series: Leading for Dialogue

Skilful conversing

 

Practising your conversational actions

If we want to really practise skilful conversational moves it's best to try these things out in a fairly safe environment. Ideally we can work with colleagues in a small group using a specific exercise where we are all aiming to experiment and learn together.

The two group practices below will guide you through exactly this kind of exercise. You can use any subject as the content of your conversation, we have just suggested two here. For the 'Practice with grit!' it's best to choose a subject that really matters to you all, so you can talk with all your values and passions at play. For the 'Quick practice' choose something more straight forward which is less likely to raise the emotional temperature.

If you are not able to bring together a group to practise, you can still try out small, safe experiments in your normal day-to-day conversations. For example, offering a 'bystand' in a meeting when the conversation gets stuck, bringing 'oppose' more into your comfort zone by trying out some small disagreements, etc.

One tip is that it's always really useful to tell the other people in the conversation about what you are learning and why you are trying out new skills. That way you won't take them by surprise!

 

Quick round dialogue practice

Example topic: What's the best children's book?

Task: Have a short dialogue with each person practising an unfamiliar 'action stance'.

 

Dialogue

Dialogue (5 minutes):

1. Nominate 1-2 people as Observers to manage the time and debrief process.
2. Choose one person to start with “I believe/my position is…”
3. Let the dialogue flow, be natural, be real, be you and try out your new stance

Observer hints

If you are taking the Observer role, you might want to pay attention to the following aspects of the conversation:

• How is 'air time' shared between the participants? Do one or two people dominate? Are the quieter people actively brought in? Did anyone get interrupted or cut off?
• What was the overall flow of the conversation? Did it get stuck or go around in circles at any point? Did people stay with one theme at a time or was it 'all over the place'? What helped the conversation flow and what got in the way?
• Which conversational actions did you see being used? Was there a good mix of stances or did one or two stances dominate? Were there any particularly helpful 'Bystands' that you noticed?

It's sometimes easier to just pick one aspect to concentrate on for the conversation - your feedback will be very useful whichever aspect you choose.

 

Debrief

Debrief (5 minutes)

1. What were the significant moments in the conversation flow?
2. How easy or difficult did you find your new practice?
3. What helped and what hindered each of us?

Debrief hints

It will help if the Observers debrief first - perhaps using half of your debrief time. Regardless of your role, remember that the debrief should be about the process of the conversation - try not to fall back into discussing the content!

Observers: What were the most significant moments in the conversation flow for you?

Participants: How easy did you find it to practice your new action stance?

All: What seemed to help the conversation flow well? What got in the way?

 

Dialogue practice with grit!

Example topic: The biggest threat to our library service talent pool is...

Task: Have a dialogue to gain awareness of your usual ‘action stances’.

 

Dialogue (10 minutes)

1. Nominate 1-2 people as Observers to manage the time and debrief process.
2. Choose a different person to start with “I believe/my position is…
3. Let the dialogue flow, be natural, be real and take some risks

 

Debrief

1. What did each of you notice about your own ‘action stances’?
2. What stances showed up the most in the conversation? Were any stances missing?
3. What would have improved the overall level of effectiveness or collaboration in the conversation?

 

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