I have always strongly believed that the conversations we have drive our relationships, either positively or negatively. As such, they play a critical role in business change and improvement and they are our most effective tool for tackling issues and understanding the meaning or motivations that drive people’s actions and attitudes. However, many companies regard them as unproductive and they are missing out on a big opportunity to build intellectual capital. Attending David Gurteen’s Knowledge Cafe workshop, gave me great insight to the role of conversation in business and how we can change our approach to how we run our meetings to inspire new thinking and generate value.
Doing business, especially for those in management and service delivery, is all about having conversations. We want them to be open, creative and constructive so that we can learn, generate new ideas and encourage cooperation. We know that we can build intellectual capital and competitive advantage through collaboration, yet the way we formalise our meetings actually stifles innovation and learning. Our meeting structures drive the communications that will strongly effect the outcomes and how well we achieve sustainable change. Often, the whole process is set up for discussion whereby everyone assumes there is a best answer and ultimately one viewpoint is chosen. Sometimes we might even move into debate – an argumentative approach where we choose language designed to challenge and defend.
In the past we would have earned our place in business and society through debate and argument, but more often today in business we are expected to collaborate with people we don’t know. To do this effectively we must put ourselves in the shoes of that other person, to understand why they think the way they do, and follow a process of mutual discovery that ultimately builds trust.
Historian and philosopher Theodore Zeldin, whose principles are at the core of this workshop’s purpose, is quoted as saying: “The kind of conversation that I am interested in is one which you start with a willingness to emerge a slightly different person”. When you don’t know the outcome of a conversation, there is more risk, but there is also more than a simple exchange of information. It is where real learning and change happens. If you can understand people better then you can work with them to inspire change and engage them in action towards doing things differently. If you are going to achieve transformation and innovation then a new and more radical approach must be adopted.
Without formal meeting structures there is a need to set the ground rules for conversing productively. It is important that we demand a quality of conversation that avoids gossip and assumption and creates a more effective way of talking. Knowledge Cafes are a cost effective tool for creating open and productive conversations in order to gain deeper understanding of an issue, as well as to reveal collective knowledge, ideas and insight. David Gurteen has been running them for many years and has delivered them all over the world. This workshop explains how to run them, critical success factors and considerations with case studies from all industries with a practical and collaborative approach that meant I also walked away with new contacts and recommendations I hadn’t expected.
The next one day workshop will be held on 13th December at the RSA in Central London.
