Someone once said that there is nothing quite as useless as a good idea…unless it is implemented.  Fifteen years ago a small group of intrepid academics, psychologists and consultants banded together around a good idea – develop an on-going dialogue to deepen their understanding about how social construction theories and practices could have a greater impact on the lives of their peers, their students and members of organizations and communities they work with.  That good idea implemented became The Taos Institute.

For the past three years The Whitman Institute has supported the Taos Institute’s continuing efforts to bring its carefully elaborated views of Social Construction into the wider public conversation about the impact of dialogue on the various relationships that make up our cultures and society.  According to John Esterle, TWI’s executive director, “TWI was drawn to supporting Taos because of the strong sense of alignment between our two organizations regarding the central role of dialogue, collaborative reasoning, and strong relationships in working to create more promising individual and collective futures.  We continue to be grateful for how much we learn from the ongoing inquiry and reflection that takes place within this special community of thinkers and doers.”  


SOME GATHERING HIGHLIGHTS
Last fall the founders of the Taos Institute convened a gathering in Florida to celebrate their 15th anniversary, to reconnect with members of their continually growing global community of students and practitioners within the social construction arena, and to deepen their conversations with a well-designed balance of theory and practice, and work and play.  This is a brief report out from that conference – about lessons learned over those fifteen years involving what makes dialogue “deliver”, and possibilities for dialogic encounters to emerge in even more unlikely ways in the future. 

The theme of the conference, Dialogues That Deliver, was meant to reinforce the sub-themes of practicality and functionality, as well as the more subtle aspects of the dialogic process.  These more purposeful notions of dialogue are ideas that often get short shrift when the focus is exclusively on the processes themselves, rather than also on the possible outcomes garnered from carefully crafted dialogic experiences

The co-founders, who also designed the conference, worked with a devilishly simple assumption in mind – that different forms of dialogue serve to achieve different ends.  Their experience over the years has taught them just how wide-ranging those ends can be.  From problem solving to brainstorming, from building and sustaining group cohesion to creating meaning out of our shared experiences, they were challenged, according to co-founder Ken Gergen, “…to illuminate specific forms of dialogue that may be effective in particular circumstances … [such as]… advanced preparation, building rapport, selecting specific forms of speech, for example, questions, narratives, avowals, mutual affirmation that would achieve specific goals, [while] maintaining flexibility, and assessing efficacy.”

In some ways the conference, paced as it was with ample opportunity for deep conversation, seemed like a way station – a place for the community to come together, take a collective breath, and take stock of the learning over the last fifteen years while creating opportunities for new learning to emerge.  In an on-line conversation following the conference, Ken summarized the lessons learned over those years, and how much of their vision about what makes dialogue transformative is viewed through a social construction lens.  He said, “Transformative dialogue is not a ‘natural act.’  Setting people into conversation may or may not yield useful outcomes. [It]…is an acquired skill, but unlike many other skills, it is not one that can be realized by an individual alone. Rather, it is a skill that becomes effective only through another's affirmation.”

Noting the complexity that is virtually axiomatic in transformative dialogue, he added, “Every dialogue will create certain forms of reality, while suppressing others.  People bring with them to dialogue multiple and mixed views of self and world… their goals and wants are fundamentally mutable.”  He went on to speak about the importance of listening on two levels saying, “It is important to engage …first with respect to the content that is being communicated, and second to the implications of what is said for the relationship between the participants.”

The first plenary brought together (for possibly the last time) the seven accomplished professionals who founded Taos with the initial aim of deepening their understanding of how social constructionist ideas could impact relationships, families and organizations to enhance the overall well-being of individuals and society at large.  This commitment led both the founders, and those who joined their community later, into areas of inquiry that have significantly affected family therapy theory and practice, organizational development, and a number of other academic and professional disciplines.


OPENING SESSION
The opening session served as a powerful iteration of that oft-quoted assertion of Margaret Meade’s* about how much a small group of dedicated individuals can accomplish once they set their minds to attaining a goal.  Rather than merely reminiscing about the “good old days”, the six Taos founders, and thought leaders in their respective fields – Harlene Anderson (Family Therapy), David Cooperrider (Organizational Behavior/Appreciative Inquiry), Ken and Mary Gergen (Psychology), Shiela McNamee (Communications), Suresh Srivastra (Organizational Behavior), and Diana Whitney (Appreciative Inquiry) – engaged in a continuation of that initial dialogue they began fifteen years ago.  Their interactions modeled their orientations, which are gleaned from those respective fields, to the work of social construction, and clearly showed to all present – longstanding members and new students in the field alike – the impact that focused dialogue can have over time in the creation of new institutions, as well as impacting well-established ones.
                                                                                 
The breadth of keynote sessions was another indication of how much the initial seed idea for Taos has germinated into some interesting and perhaps surprising new species.  The sessions also demonstrated the level of scholarship devoted over the years to understanding just what makes dialogues “work”, and what it means to say they “deliver”.  For instance John Shotter, Communications Professor at the University of New Hampshire and an associate member of Taos, presented some intriguing questions about the experience “Inside the Dialogic Moment”.  He offered a new paradigm for how becoming deeply in touch with both “the other” and the “determining surroundings” that shape dialogue experiences can lead to a unique and profound sort of knowing.  

In a related paper about this paradigm John wrote, “…[a] dialogical or relational view of people's psychic life, suggests that people's 'inner lives' are neither so private, nor so inner, nor so logical, orderly, or systematic as has been assumed. Instead, our 'thinking', as we call it, not only reflects essentially the same ethical, rhetorical, political, and poetic features as those reflected in the dialogical transactions between people out in the world, but does not go on wholly 'inside' us as individuals either.” (http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/inner.htm)

Ginny Belden-Charles, a doctoral student in the Taos-Tilburg Program**, participated in the “Dialogue as Coordinated Action” workshop led by the Gergens.  Highlighting the combined movement and improvisational exercises that can occur within dialogue, Ginny noted, “Besides the sheer fun of this session, I found my assumptions challenged in one of the exercises. I left with a question that I continue to ponder about the role our emotions play when we shift from an individual to a relational perspective. I valued engaging in a dialogue that went beyond conversation to accessing our assumptions within a whole body experience.”  

Another unusual manifestation of dialogue presented itself within the context of meditation (“Meditation as a relational dialogue: A self-reflective discourse analysis”).  In this workshop Jerry Gale, the Director of the Marriage and Family Program at the University of Georgia, focused on how the inner dialogue and narratives that occur during meditation can play a vital part in shaping both self-identity and action.  Gerry introduced several intriguing exercises involving both individual and dyadic meditations.  Participants were invited to explore more deeply how meditation impacts self-awareness as the “witnessing-I” is constructed.  The experiences and learning gleaned from this workshop again reinforced in very visceral ways John Shotter’s more theoretical discussion of the “dialogic moment” during the earlier plenary session. 


A FINAL COMMENT
A final comment:  in addition to the international flavor of the Taos community – with participants from China to The Netherlands and Denmark, and from Canada to Brazil and Argentina – one of the more gratifying, and perhaps hopeful, aspects of the conference was the intergenerational make-up as well.  A number of workshops and sessions were led by Tilburg-Taos doctoral students, as well as practitioners seasoned beyond their years.  This focus on embedding sustainable structures for succession within their community bodes well for the future, and makes the idea of the 30th Anniversary Gathering of the Taos Institute both a real and attractive possibility.

Notes:
The complete Margaret Meade quote is: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

**The Taos/Tilburg PhD Program is a partnership between Taos and Tilburg University in the Netherlands.  Graduate students work with a ‘Program Team” that includes both a Tilburg University Professor and a Taos Advisor.  When these students complete their studies, they are rewarded with a doctoral degree from one of the premier universities in Europe.  More information about this unique program can be found at: http://www.taosinstitute.net/tilburg/tilburg.html