Systems Analysis Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland
P.O.Box 1100, FIN-02015 HUT, Finland
Email: sebastian.slotte@hut.fi
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Abstract
The paper presents a general methodology for dialogue interventions, Systems
Sensitive Dialogue Intervention Dialogue interventions are viewed in the light of Gerald
Midgleys general presentation of systemic intervention. By focusing on the dialogue
philosophy of Martin Buber and the key elements in two popular dialogue methods it is
proposed that a) enhancing individual participants sensitivity to the unique human system
they form is the primary task of a dialogue intervention, b) when designing dialogical
interventions it is useful to creatively use elements from different available dialogical
methods and c) dialogue interventions should be designed in experiential and existential
rather than in metaphysical terms.
Keywords: dialogue, systemic intervention, methodology
INTRODUCTION
Dialogue methods consist of specific rules and guidelines that aim to improve group
interaction, collective learning and investigation. The central task of a dialogue is to provide
a setting for communication and thinking in a group. Normally, the guidelines and rules for
everyday debates, discussions and meetings are tacit. Of course, tacit rules vary from
organization to organization and from culture to culture, and it is contingent which rules are
applied. In dialogue interventions these rules and guidelines are made explicit.
Over the past ten years, dialogue has made a breakthrough in a number of fields.
Dialogue has been recommended by organizational theoreticians and introduced in
organizations for various purposes. The systems thinking variant of the learning organization
(Senge, 1990; Senge et al., 1994), the knowledge creating company (Nonaka and Takeuchi,
1995) and the notion of corporate culture (Schein, 1999) are examples of general
organizational theories which regard dialogue as a central organizational practice. Dialogue
and dialogical methods are presented as a core practice of specific organizational areas such
as team learning (Senge, 1990; Senge et al., 1994), leadership programs (Frydman et al.,
2000), corporate responsibility and human rights (Frankental et al., 2000) and Business
Ethics (Maclagan, 2000; van Hooft 2000).
Moreover, dialogue has been implemented in participatory planning(Väntänen et. al,
2003) community building (Freire, 1972), and in national and international conflict
resolution (Deutsch and Coleman, 2000; Susskind et al., 1999). Educational dialogue has
been presented as an alternative to traditional teacher and fact centered education (Norris,
2003). Moreover, general recipes for dialogical interventions and consultancy have been put
forth by theoreticians and practitioners alike (Ellinor and Gerard 1998; Flick, 1998; Isaacs,
1999; Simmons, 1999; Yankelovich, 1999).
The effort of this paper is to contribute to the development of a methodology for
Dialogue Interventions called Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention. In accordance
with Midgleys (2000) theory of systemic intervention, it is proposed that a methodology
is an important aid for practitioners and researchers in designing proper and effective
dialogue interventions.
A proper dialogue intervention is defined as aiming at enhancing participants’
sensitivity to the human system they form together. This sensitivity to the relational,
inquiring, and synergetic is constitutive to dialogue. An effective dialogue intervention
produces through appropriate dialogue produces a desirable outcome e.g. improvement,
from the whole systems viewpoint.
The notion of Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention is a result of empirical
experimentation with various dialogue methods and combinations. The interventions
where carried out in various fields such as education (Hjelm and Slotte, 2001; Slotte and
Hjelm, 2002; Slotte 2003), decision making (Slotte and Hämäläinen, 2003), and natural
resources conflict management (Väntänen et al., 2003).
The research is related to a multidisciplinary research project on Systems
Intelligence (Hämäläinen and Saarinen, 2004) of which dialogue is an integral part.
The presentation of Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention is organized in the
following way. Firstly, dialogue interventions are discussed in the light of Midgely’s
(2000) theory of Systemic Intervention. Secondly, reservations against the benefits of
dialogue are discussed with references to Stacey (2001). Systems Sensitive Dialogue
Interventions are presented as enhancing systems sensitivity in participants, resting on a
creative use of methods and avoiding normative metaphysical demands.
METHODOLOGY
Recently, there have been some disputes about which methods create proper and
efficient dialogue an are the most accurate (Kessels, 2001; Platts, 2002). The claim
made here is that such discussions become obsolate if one takes the human system and
its particular needs as a starting point for dialogue interventions. Rather than asking
which method is the correct one, the practitioner should consider what he can do and
which actions and methods in any particular situation create proper dialogue e.g. an
atmosphere of joint investigation, thinking together, inquiry, reflection and respect
(Boele, 1997; Bohm, 1996; Buber, 1947) in a human system, such as a team, a class, a
family, a group of stakeholders, a management team etc. The laws of social behavior are
not as rigid as the laws of mechanism and nature. The same method is likely to produce
different outcomes in different settings. Accordingly, we cannot expect that one method
will produce proper dialogue in every situation. Rather, proper dialogue is reached
through a creative use of different methods.
According to Midgley (2000), a methodology for systemic intervention should
take action for improvement as an explicit starting point. Improvement is defined
temporarily and locally as different human systems and agents may use different
boundary judgments (Midgley, 2000). In Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention,
improvement is viewed through the realization of the desired consequences of the
human system engaged in dialogue. The goals of the different dialogue methods
include, for example, the clarification of a concept, conflict resolution and improved
joint investigation. When a particular aim is realized it represents improvement, if the
system engaged in dialogue judges so.
Thus, the methods to facilitate dialogue interventions should not be regarded as
static but flexible and should be chosen in compliance with the expectations, needs,
fears, values and maturity of the individuals participating, and with the human system
they together create.
Finally, it is proposed that not only the facilitator of a dialogue intervention
should be open about his normative vision (Midgley, 2001; Midgley and Ochoa-Arias,
1999) but not impose it.The that participants engaged in a dialogue intervention should
be encouraged to reflect on ideological, metaphysical and pragmatic boundaries
(Midgley, 2001).
CHALLENGES
In recent criticism the impact of dialogue has been questioned. A powerful
argument against dialogue as presented by Senge and Bohm is made by Stacey (2001).
Stacey makes a strong case about learning and knowledge creation in organizations and
argues that dialogue is an attempt to return to the ancient wisdom and conversational
patterns of old cultures, such as those of North American Indians. Stacey rebukes this
attempt as a nonsensical romantic idea of a lost Eden.
However, the references to Native Americans should be regarded as a
pedagogical way of illustrating alternatives to aggressive debate, advocacy and
dialectics. The rise of the principles and the practice of dialogue is, in fact, a highly
modern phenomenon with purely European roots (Taylor, 1989; Walker,1999). Of
course, dialogue was a central way to engage in theoretical matters with practical
implications in the days of Socrates (Zanakis et al., 2003) and during the Hellenistic era
of philosophy, the practice of dialogical skills, such as listening and presence became a
central skill in the philosophical quest for a good life (Hadot, 1995). But not before the
first half of the 20th century did philosophers, such as Leonard Nelson, Martin Buber,
and Mikhail Bakhtin formulate the basic ideas of dialogue as a practice that all men and
women can and should engage in (Bradbury and Lichtenstein 2000). It is these
philosophies of dialogue that organizational practitioners, theoreticians, educationalists
and consultants today, indirectly or directly, are building on in real world interventions.
In opposition to Bohm’s and Senge’s dialogue conception, Stacey (2001) wants to
draw attention to the multitude of everyday conversations that can be very creative but also
very destructive. Moreover, Stacey claims that organizational theoreticians and consultants,
instead of presenting dialogue and other conversational tools of an idealized kind, should
focus on understanding the communicative interaction we currently engage in within
hierarchical organizations. The answer to Stacey on this point is that there is extensive
evidence suggesting that ordinary communication and the thinking that accompanies it often
goes wrong in ways that may have negative, sometimes fatal, impact on a wide variety of
organizational aspects: failure of organizational change programs, failure of strategic
programs, and collapse of internal and external ethics (Dalla Costa, 1999; De Geuss, 1999;
Senge et al., 1999). It is widely accepted that ordinary communication and thinking can, and
at times should, be the object of change (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001; Janis, 1982). Far
from being an idealization, dialogue takes into account ordinary ways of communication and
can, in the form of dialogue sessions, be a complement to these. The lessons and skills
learned in dialogue session can also be transformed and incorporated into other more
ordinary forms of communication and interaction (Slotte, 2004).
According to Stacey (2001), dialogue assumes a distinction between the
individual and the collective mind. Stacey argues that the individual and the group are
the same phenomenon and that there is no transcendent whole, or group mind, or
common pool of meaning outside of it. Rather, common meaning emerges in the
communicative interaction between people in their local situation in the present (Stacey,
2001). However, dialogue is fundamentally not resting on such an ontological split, but
rather in line with the view Stacey holds on this particular issue. Bohm whose ideas
about dialogue the argument is directed against, clearly states (Bohm 1992; Bohm 1996)
that individual thinking is dependent on cultural structures of thought and that
individual thinking has an impact on the common structure and content of thought in a
given culture. In fact, dialogue rest on the idea that individual thoughts and collective
thought are not separate but necessarily affecting each other. Dialogue is rather in line
with constructivism (Gergen et al., 2002). However, Stacey must be credited for his
indirect criticism of attempts to present dialogue as resting more or less on mysticism
and as a strive for predetermined metaphysical insights. I will return to this point in the
next to last section of the paper.
SYSTEMS FOCUS
Common for the different conceptions and methods of dialogue is the attempt to
overcome individual and social barriers for sharing meaning, values and understanding.
Dialogue has proven to be a powerful way of intervening, for example, in situations
were threats to joint investigation, mutual respect and meaningful communication such
as groupthink ,(Janis, 1982) defensive and limiting interpersonal reasoning are strong
(Kahneman et al., 1982).
Martin Buber’s (1947) philosophy of dialogue paves the way towards seeing a
group of dialoguers as a special kind of human system. Buber’s views on dialogue have
been applied in counseling and to some extent in conflict situations (Schuster, 1999) but
when it comes to dialogue interventions in larger human systems, such as as
organizations, his views on dialogue and especially his view of relationality have
remained somewhat in the shadow (Bradbury H and Lichtenstein B, 2000). For
example, Dixon (1998), Flick (1998) Isaacs (1999), Senge (1990) and Yankelovich
(1999) all mention Buber as an important figure. However, they do not explicitly apply
dialogue with reference to his discussion on applied dialogue (Buber, 1947). Though
Buber did not envision a dialogue method, he claimed that the necessary conditions for
dialogue to emerge as a practice are the recognition of relationality, trust, the idea of
communication with and responsibility (Buber 1947).
According to Buber (1947) engagement in dialogue must be promoted by
pointing to the relational character of human systems. The importance of the relational
aspects of dialogue cannot be emphasized enough. First and foremost dialogue becomes
a way to relate with the other participants partaking in the dialogue. The challenge of
the participants in dialogue is to recognize the uniqueness of the particular human
systems they comprise. It is through the notion of this engagement that the dialogical
skills such as listening, suspension, respecting and voicing (Isaacs, 1999) gain their
meaning.
The entrance to dialogue is the realization that man is a relational creature that
has the possibility to meet, communicate and create in a “space between”. The
relationality and the “space between” is not just something one might choose or wish to
engage in. According to Buber (1947) it exists independently of any particular action
between human beings. The “space between” is not observable in space and time in the
same sense that a single individual and a collective are. For example, changes in a
person, such as aging, can be seen when observing that person for some time. Likewise,
a collective and its changes can be observed in space and time. However, the “space
between” is not observable in similar fashion. It is something re-constituted in every
accidental encounter between two persons (Buber 1947).
Engagement in dialogue is to fully engage oneself with the other. Dialogue is not
primarly a detached presentation of ones ideas and a detached inquiry into the ideas of
others. Dialogue is not communication about but communication with (Buber, 1947). It
is not plainly aimed at exchanging views between contributors from to different
perspectives or human systems. The focus of a dialogue intervention should primary be
on the values, knowledge and ideas within the system currently engaged in dialogue, not
on the values, knowledge and ideas of the individuals or the system they represent. To
engage in dialogue does not necessarily mean giving up ones own point of view or fully
accepting that of the other. Buber statets that the individual sphere is untouched, but
when people enter into dialogue the law of individual points no longer holds (Buber
1947). Thus, for Buber the ontology of the dialogical, e.g. the reality and nature of
dialogue is systemic in the systems thinking sense of the word: human systems in
dialogue develop and create something new out of what the participating individual
values, ideas and knowledge bring with them. In dialogue, participants set aside the
belief that thoughts or ideas can only be communicated from an individual to another, or
that rules and forces external to these two individuals determine what is spoken. The
space between can be characterized as a form of common reason where multiple voices
create and work on single ideas.
The idea of the relational character of communication differs strongly from the
so called conduit metaphor which is the dominant view of communication, for example,
in the lion part of managerial textbooks (Bokeno, 2002; Axley, 1984). According to the
conduit metaphor, successful communication is like a pipeline. Messages are
understood as information that are transmitted from a sender to a receiver, decoded by
the receiver, and successful if the meaning of the message is the same at both ends
(Bokeno 2002). According to Bokeno the conduit metaphor which describes how the
understanding and practice of communication is perceived in organizations, is
theoretically inappropriate, often dysfunctional and ineffective and a hindrance for
implementing programs for creative, playfull and innovative communication such as
dialogue. If the conduit concept is dominating and not questioned, dialogic modes of
interaction are in danger of being covered as yet another management concept, rather
than modeled or developed as the rich, constructive and productive mode of interaction
that it is (Bokeno 2002).
An example of why a dialogue intervention might fail due to the mistake of
viewing dialogue as conduit communication is found in the practice what is called
cross-cultural dialogue (Du Bois and Hutson, 1997). Cross-cultural dialogue has
recently been criticized for encouraging such knowledge of other participants that is
considered inappropriate (Jones 1999). In a cross-cultural dialogue where white and
black students were participating in order to exchange information about their own
culture the demands by white students to know marginalized black students enforced
colonizing attitudes and strengthened prejudices. According to Jones (1999), emphatic
knowing in cross-cultural dialogue can thus prevent us from recognizing our own
systematic complicity.
From the viewpoint presented here, cross-cultural dialogue is not dialogical
because its reliance upon the conduit metaphor prevents participants in dialogue to
perceive each other as forming a unique human system. In a dialogue situation
participants practice and focus on the virtues of dialogue, pay attention to their own
habits of thought, mental models and possible prejudices. Especially dialogue that aims
at mediating in conflicts between participants should aid understanding and respect for
their counterparts by encouraging to meet the person behind the system or position they
represent. Engagement in group dialogue leaves personal integrity intact but allows for
surprise and unpredictable innovations in the interplay between dialoguers. According
to Buber, a criteria for dialogue is that participants have the intention of establishing
mutual relations (Buber 1947).
Naturally, participants in a dialogue also have obligations and commitments to
other systems and goals. The point emphasized here is that dialogue is especially well
suited for understanding and working with the human system one is temporarily
engaged with. When a dialogical relationship is established, it can well serve as a basis
for discussing and reflecting on commitments to other human systems.
MIXING METHODS
The systems emphasis in Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention bears
consequences on method. The proposal here is that the starting point of a dialogue
intervention should not be one given method and its utilizations for a given purpose but
rather the needs and challenges of the human system that is to be engaged in dialogue.
The human system comes first, then method. This is not to say that methods are
superfluous. However, the design and facilitation of dialogue is situational. Methods
chosen should correspond to the motivation and maturity of the participants of dialogue.
In the following I shall briefly present two popular dialogue methods, Bohmian
and Nelsonian dialogue in order to show that both, despite their differences, have
strengths and can be used in dialogue interventions.
The Bohmian Method
According to the Bohmian School of dialogue, the focus in dialogue should be
on process rather than on content. A dialogue should not have a predetermined agenda
or a given content (Isaacs 1999; Senge, 1994; Simmons, 1999). By paying attention to
the guidelines or virtues of dialogue, the agenda or issues are said to emerge during the
dialogue process itself (Bohm, 1992; Bohm, 1996). Isaacs (1999) discusses four
principal virtues of dialogue: listening, suspension of judgment, expressing and
respecting. The virtues are not simply presented as virtues that one can automatically
turn to but rather as skills that one should develop and learn to practice. Other important
virtues or skills presented by Isaac and other theoreticians and practitioners include
thinking together, encouraging others to speak, focusing on the issue and not on the
personal character of other participants, winning together rather than winning for
yourself, speaking from experience, and changing the viewpoint.
The reason to engage in dialogue is, for Bohm and others who share his views
on dialogue, a practical matter. Dialogue creates shared meaning, values and a sense of
community that supports joint action and the creation of culture (Bohm 1992). By
making dialogue one of the core principles of an organization or a community a new
communication and thinking culture can emerge. Isaacs (1999) and Senge (1994)
provide a lot of examples of this. For Senge et al. (1994) dialogue becomes a way to
align action. According to Senge (1990), Bohmian type of dialogue gives access to such
information and meaning that cannot be accessed individually, enhances new action,
provides individuals with collective meaning and offers a place for innovation and
inquiry. Furthermore, all these capabilities are thought to improve efficiency in groups
and in organizations.
The Socratic Method
Leonard Nelson (1956) developed the Socratic Method. Today it is chiefly
known as Socratic Dialogue or Neo-Socratic Dialogue. Socratic Dialogue is a way to
engage people in an advanced philosophical dialogue. The method should naturally not
be confused with the Socratic dialogues of Plato even if it is inspired by Socrates
(Boele, 1997). Participation in a Socratic dialogue does not require prior experience in
philosophy but an interest to discuss philosophical and ethical questions and a
willingness to distance oneself from one’s own commitments (Boele, 1998; Van Hooft,
2000). In organizational contexts, Socratic dialogue has become especially popular in
developing and investigating values and business ethics (Bolten 2001, Kessels 2001,
Van Hooft 2000). In contrast to the idea that dialogue is rather process than content
Socratic dialogue stands out by always focusing on a predetermined topic or question.
The core of Socratic Dialogue is called “regressive abstraction”. Regressive
abstraction is an inquiry into the everyday experiences of participants and their
understanding of these experiences by comparing, analyzing and seeing them in the
light of the general concepts they are founded on. For example, a concrete experience
conceptualized and described as an instance of freedom is contrasted with a general
definition of freedom. Both the concrete experience and the abstraction are developed in
the course of the dialogue by the dialoguers themselves.
A Socratic Dialogue starts with a question of investigation, for instance: “What
is meaningful work?”, “What is freedom?”, or “What is love?”. The dialogue starts with
all participants giving a personal example of a situation were they feel that an instance
of the matter of investigation was realized. The participants, when presenting their
examples, do not have to prove that their examples are an instance of the matter of
investigation. Intuition or feeling is enough. The example should be one in which the
participant herself is a main character. Also, the example should be concrete in space
and time. For example; “Two weeks ago on Sunday, when visiting a friend of mine the
following happened”. The dialogue proceeds by discussing which one of the examples
should be chosen as a core example of the investigation. After choosing one example
the dialogue gradually reaches an increasingly abstract level culminating in a core
definition: E.g. “freedom is X” were X stands for a sentence of attributes suggested and
dialogued about amongst the participants. Thereafter the dialogue proceeds back to the
concrete by analyzing the abstract judgments principles and rules and ending at the
question about its applicability in concrete life.
Content and Process
For a general methodology of dialogue in Systemic interventions, both the
Bohmian and Nelsonian methods are important. Systems Sensitive Dialogue
Intervention takes into consideration both content and process. Dialogue intervention
can focus solely on content but often such dialogues does not have an impact on the way
people interact. It does not provide dialoguers with a new ability for interaction e.g.
systems sensitivity. The merits of Socratic Dialogue in a Systemic Intervention is that it
provides a structured way to engage in dialogue about a given issue and that dialoguers
find perspectives on the issue from personal experience, thus avoiding speculation and
possible power differences due to, for example, educational level or position.
When the choice of method is based on the needs of the human system engaging
in dialogue, a combination of methods can be useful. For instance, a conflict situation
might require that participants improve their listening skills, are encouraged to show
respect for other stakeholders, and learn to thinking together. However, to engage in a
dialogue with no agenda can easily grow into a feeling that it is a waste time especially
if it is a conflict situation and in times of pressing problems (Frydman et al., 2000;
Slotte and Hämäläinen 2004 ).
Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention emphasizes creative design of dialogue
interventions. This has, for example been done in a natural resources decision making
context (Slotte and Hämäläinen 2003) where the reflection on boundaries as an
improvement itself became important. The creative mix of dialogue methods can also be
strengthened by other dialogue-related methods such as Appreciative Inquiry
(Copperrider and Whitney 1999; Norum 2003) and Communication Other/Wise
(Bokeno 2002).
FROM METAPHYSICS TO EXPERIENCE
Commitment to any particular metaphysics of dialogue is not a necessary
precondition for engaging in dialogue. In a Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention, the
facilitator refraims from advancing any metaphysical agenda of her own. Midgley (2000)
points out and questions the fact that some people in the Community OR research
community have included political agendas in their interventions. What applies to political
agendas in Midgleys analysis applies to metaphysics in dialogue interventions . Bohmian
dialogue, Socratic dialogue and Bubers presentation of dialogue include metaphysical claims
such as ”the unfolding of thought”, ”the implicate order” ”the self-confidence of reason” and
”unity with God”. Ethically, practitioners and theoreticians are in their full right to ascribe
metaphysical characteristic to dialogue but these meta-level descriptions should not inform a
dialogue intervention. When the applicative literature presents the metaphysical hypotheses
and metaphors of the philosophies of dialogue as hard facts of dialogue, dialogue runs the
risk of becoming a quest for these metaphysical and metaphorical states and thus perceived
by participants as a mystic procedure were the ultimate goal is to experience a metaphysical
state such as the implicate order, collective intelligence, the one, God or the Platonic world
of ideas.
For example, if dialogue is defined as a quest for the platonic ideas or unity with
God, it would be difficult and ethically questionable to engage a relativist respectively
an atheist in the dialogue. Participants in a dialogue should be given the sole right to
draw their own metaphysical conclusion about the dialogue. Systems sensitivity does
not involve, preclude or exclude any predetermined metaphysics but concerns
observable relational aspects. In other words, it is proposed that the classification of the
metaphysical nature of these experiences should be left to the dialoguers themselves.
A Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention assumes that imposing any
metaphysical ideas on dialoguers is at odds with the core ideas of dialogue. Participation
in a dialogue which assumes some alien metaphysical principle can be awkward and
restrain people from engaging in dialogue. When such metaphysical entities are
presented as the goal of dialogue, the core philosophical principle of dialogue as a free
encounter between dialoguers, becomes endangered. Ethically, there is a risk that the
metaphysical entities are at odds with the personal worldviews of the dialoguers.
Pragmatically, the methods to facilitate dialogue become guided by the metaphysical
entities in favor of the needs, creativity and engagement of the dialoguers. Instead of
creating a strong personal experience and a new attitude towards discussed issues it runs
the risk of becoming a ritual predetermined by a metaphysical agenda.
It should be noted that dialoguers often express their personal experiences in
subjective terms, sometimes reflecting personal, sometimes cultural values. When a
group uses terms such as “magic” or “energy” to express their experiences, it should not
automatically be viewed in metaphysical terms. Actors, as well as dialoguers, often use
the world “energy” metaphorically or poetically to describe the level of co-operation. If
understood literally the experience of “energy” and talk of energy levels could easily be
dismissed as unscientific, but interpreted metaphorically, it can make perfect sense
(Collins 2004).
However, practitioners should not hide their personal views on metaphysical
questions if they are strongly committed to some. They should, however, make it clear
that the participants are free to draw their own metaphysical conclusions.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
This paper has sought to contribute to a methodology for dialogue interventions.
Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention presents dialogue as one of many possible ways
humans engage in communication. Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention recognizes the
value of other language games in human systems and is not an effort to challenge these but is
an aid in designing dialogical intervention in situations where such are perceived to be
appropriate.
When participants learn to engage in dialogue, they learn a new way of relating that,
in itself, is more of an act than mere speech or contemplation of ideas. This ability is can be
used in any human encounter.
In a Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention the main focus of the participants
is the human system that is comprised out of the participants. Of course, participants in
dialogue bring with them their values, ideas and knowledge. However, a Systems
Sensitive Dialogue Intervention strives not to compare, transmit or evaluate these.
Instead, it focuses on what values, ideas and knowledge emerge from the dialogical
relation.
Systems Sensitive Dialogue Intervention encourages scientists, philosophers,
consultants and managers facilitating a dialogue to creatively combine content and
process focused methods with the human system that is engaging in dialogue as the
starting point.
The paper identifies the value of different dialogue-methods for dialogue
interventions. The notion of Systems Sensitive Dialogue Interventions was developed as
a result of empirical work with dialogue. It can be developed further by case studies of
dialogical interventions that are designed in accordance with the recommendations
presented here.
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