Dialog is the Key to Organizational Efficiency: Find Out Why
Dialog is a form of communication between two or more people. Its purpose is to reorganize evolving individual thought processes into a collective thought process. This collective thought process is mandatory in an organizational context because no one individual can build an organization by themselves. The dialog process gathers the collective energy and strength of all stakeholders in an organization and channelizes it towards growth. In this blog, we explore what dialog is and what makes it an integral aspect of business coaching.
What is Dialog?
To start off, how is the dialog process different from daily communication or conversations at work? When a team works together, conversations are necessary for the execution and completion of tasks. This includes getting reports on time, fixing and achieving quarterly targets, finalizing strategies, etc. Team members working together need to converse with each other to ensure the execution and completion of such tasks. Everyone involved is aware of their responsibility and the need to be polite when they deal with each other. They know they need to be courteous so that fellow team members are cooperative and supportive. Such situations do not fall under the umbrella of dialog.
Structured and monitored, a dialog process is about focusing on specific types of circumstances. It is a form of communication that offers the scope to convert prolonged problems, stuck situations, and repeated and familiar frustrations of day-to-day work into instruments that propel organizational growth. Such scenarios create frustrations in employees that drain their energy. They leash potential and rob employees of inspiration and motivation that could contribute to the growth of the organization.
In summary, therefore, for normal functioning, a courteous conversation with the fellow team member is sufficient. A dialog, on the other hand, has the potential to open developmental possibilities. This occurs because a dialog is about addressing unspoken frustrations among employees.
The Role of Dialog in Business Coaching
A business coach trained in creating an environment for the dialoguing process can facilitate dialog in an organization. Through this process, the coach paves the way for nurturing a learning culture. Competent in constructing and maintaining a neutral learning space, the coach creates such a space to facilitate dialog that can result in building a collective force that works for organizational growth. Such a space ensures that there is an openness to learning, respect, empathy, and eye-to-eye-level contact between participants of various designations. So, what is the meaning of eye-to-eye-level contact, and how do empathy and a learning culture facilitate a dialog in coaching? Let’s look at the different elements of the dialoguing process.
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- Learning Culture
To begin with, let’s look at how and why build a learning culture. Dr Bernd Schmid defines culture “as a network of habits”. This network of habits is created by people who are part of a responsibility chain in an organization. Over time, everyone within the organization adapts these habits without question. This, in turn, can create blocks in the path to growth. It is therefore necessary to periodically weed out habits that come in the way of growth. This is not easy. Notably, the culture of an organization can only change for the better when people in the chain learn about their habits together.
- Eye-to-Eye-Level Contact
Moving on to eye-to-eye-level contact, how does that work in a learning culture? Essentially, people with different designations and responsibilities sit together as equal learning partners. The objective is to open communication channels across different organizational levels to talk about the challenges and new possibilities. It does not mean senior designations get a go-by. For example, in a meeting where a learning space is created, a VP of operations has the chance to understand the difficulties of field operators. Most importantly, one can do so without feeling the need to be defensive about what he is hearing. Instead of defending policies or decisions, the VP can look at the exchange as an opportunity to course correct. They could use their position for allotting larger resources or influence a change in the system.
For their part, junior team members can share their thoughts and ideas without fear of dismissal or reprisal. The understanding that we get through the process of dialog, maintaining eye-to-eye- level contact, is that employees at different levels are all interested in the same outcome, irrespective of their designations. Eye-to-eye level means people may have different designations but partner equally in growing the organization.
- Empathy
One need not be a counsellor or a psychotherapist to show empathy. My definition of empathy is “showing care for fellow human beings without minimizing their capacity to handle their situations”. An MD of an organization where we initiated organizational development work told me, “Through business coaching, if you can make people talk about their difficulties in the review meetings, it will be of great help.” I see this MD is empathetic.
In a chain of responsibilities, infusing empathy through dialog benefits the whole chain. It helps an individual to feel understood without minimizing their competency. When there is empathy, people feel safe to open up. They feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas, and to have a chance to bond emotionally. When the team is emotionally resilient and works cohesively, the results can be extraordinary.
A factory where we initiated business coaching and facilitated dialog among various levels of the production team tripled its production without additional resources. Dialog led to a fully cohesive, cross-functional team that was able to overcome challenges, plan optimum use of resources, and have been able to sustain this practice even 10 years later.
In essence, Dialog is like water—it is a soft force but strong enough to move hard mountains.
Challenges in the Dialoguing Process
However, being present in a learning space along with their reportees is not an easy task for many owners, investors, CEOs, senior managers, or anyone in a leadership or managerial position. Organizations where the top leadership does not participate in an active learning space along with their teams tend to have a tight and controlled bureaucratic set-up. This differentiation between positions makes the organization hierarchical, which blocks the bottom-up coordination. It is not possible for employees to realize their full potential in a dynamic market in such an organization. Dialog is an antidote to bureaucracy.
What then are the elements that make the process of dialog successful?
The Requirements for a Successful Dialog
- Intention
As a business coach, I am aware that not all organizations have an openness to develop a collective strength or do away with bureaucracy. However, an intention by the leadership to nurture collective strength, to share power so that the team can double their energy is sufficient. Business coaching is a viable avenue to learn the attitude needed to develop the collective strength through dialog.
- Inquiry
To develop a culture of dialog within an organization, the key competence required by a business coach is to format the right inquiry. An inquiry is a mature form of a question without the need for a predefined outcome. Inquiry helps to open conversation within and between teams. Examples of inquiry that can inspire the individuals and team are:
- What motivates them at work?
- When does their motivation drop?
- Where does the team work more and gets less results?
These questions do not have a predefined answer but begin a search for one.
- Eliciting Patterns
Once the inquiry is set, the team shares their thoughts and reflections. The team conversations are then organized to check for any commonality or patterns. Dialog also can also focus on what people will do/act individually and collectively to use the frustrations and aspirations as fuel to propel the organization forward.
- Including the Right People
In an organizational context, the people who need to dialog are more important than what needs to be dialogued. Hence, in order to incorporate dialog as a part of organization culture, we prepare a culture of learning with the design as depicted below.
To create a safe space and get a sample of business coaching we always start with the leader of the organization. In this way the leader models being a learning champion. As a next step, one more key member in the organization joins and we gradually increase the learning network aligned to the work network. Such step by step introduction to learning within the organization builds the attitude and competence to dialog.
In a business coaching context, dialogs become multilogues since many people and many divisions combine together in conversations. The process of dialog helps to negotiate three layers in developing a congruent action as a team.
Layer 1: Engagement and Execution
As a part of business coaching, the team dialogs about how they are engaging and executing projects currently.
Layer 2: Empathy
Dialog on understanding the difficulties and differences, and getting self-regulated. Self-regulation in an organizational context would be for an individual to be able to manage the insecurities, and notice and open unexpressed expectations. Such regulations increase an individual’s ability to perform in an optimal zone.
Layer 3: Emerging Possibilities
When the current challenges surface and are empathized with, the environment becomes a space for exploring new ways of execution. This, in turn, lifts the organization.
A Case Study
An organization has already identified growth projects which are run by teams. To monitor the progress of the projects, the organization had arrived at some key criteria and flagged the progress in colours to indicate the stages of progress. Green meant the team was doing well and the outcome was achieved. Orange signified moderate success and Red meant very poor performance. The organization wanted to work on the projects which had been marked Red for a prolonged period and invited me as a business coach to understand why the project was way behind schedule.
I led the meeting along with the learning and development head. My inquiry started with who all can make difference to the project. The project team was a mix of cross-functional teams. So we invited the VP, operations and VP, R&D who both had the power to influence change and move the project from Red to Green. I met the team members individually and as a group and prepared them for dialog. Post preparation, we had a whole-day coaching session planned for the entire team getting coached together. The inquiry we formulated was: “How can we individually and collectively impact the project to move it to green?”
The Dialoguing Process Outcomes
The production team said: If the quality department is able to provide approval on time, then we will ensure quick productivity. The quality department people said: If the operations team ensures quality in the assembly, then we could give a quick approval. The maintenance team said: If the operations team gives a shut down as per the schedule, and so on. In this manner, we got a huge list from the teams.
The emerging theme was: “If the other department made the initiative…” I brought this to their notice, and the team felt embarrassed to see how they were pushing for responsibility. They realized that this attitude was creating stress for everyone. The team then came up with a plan to support each other rather than wait for the other team to initiate. While they made an action plan, there were issues that were brought up with the R&D head and the head of operations regarding unrealistic timelines and measures of the project’s progress. The leadership assured the team that they would get the measuring criteria updated in the audit. Over three months of consistent follow-up, the project turned to Green and sustained it.
In summary, dialog ensures the attitude of eye-to-eye-level engagement, empathy, and a learning culture that allows the right inquiry. Thereafter, organizing thoughts and reflections shared by people, eliciting patterns, and acting on changing the patterns in a collective way ensures growth of an organization. The key benefits that the organization gains while dialoguing are that the diagnosis, the culture to address the gaps, and implementation solutions happen simultaneously, lifting the organization to new heights.
NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Emeritus.
