You can get more from your time, as a local leader,  by treating every occasion as a chance for conversation – and don’t worry if you end up doing the listening whilst other people talk: that’s the most valuable time of all.  If you’re invited to give a presentation to a local society, school or group, for example, turn the opportunity into a conversation?  If you have time, use the opportunity to socialise beforehand (you might pick up useful information to include in your presentation).  Leave time for other people to talk – including about the things they are ‘expert’ in – the place you’re visiting; the story of how they got there…  After you leave, you can keep up the conversation by emailing or mentioning the group, and what you learnt, on social media.

Making conversation is second nature to a lot of local leaders – it’s something you can do almost without thinking? There’s no sense in trying to change your style to fit in with a particular set of theoretical rules for how to do it.  If there were rules of good conversation, the first would probably be that there are no cast-iron rules!  There may, however, be some things to bear in mind:

• good conversations are always about something (not always what they may appear to be about on the surface), but they are rarely based on a set idea of an outcome

• they tend not have a fixed start or end-point, but can carry on from time-to-time (social media helps extend them – which can be a good thing… and sometimes not such a good thing)

• one thing leads to another – good conversations take shape organically (which is not to say that dialogue can’t be pruned into shape a little by some active facilitation)
• there’s a level of politeness and formality we take for granted (it varies from group to group) – if you get it wrong, people tend to switch off or drop out
• participants (which includes you) can drop in and come and go from a conversation, but they can’t just butt in and then leave (that’s just rude!) – so when you give a presentation and don’t listen back, that’s a missed opportunity
• conversations can be used as places to try stuff out – we can ‘wonder aloud’ in ways you can’t when you’re either devising, or filling in, a tick box consultation

• conversations may lead to an agreement to do something together, but they shouldn’t leave one participant with a long to-do list (that’s a briefing or a supervision, not a conversation)

• you can quote what you hear in a good conversation (unless someone says they are saying it ‘in confidence’) but you can’t make a spreadsheet out of it (because a good conversation has too many dimensions and nuances to fit into the structure)
• no one is ‘in charge’ of a conversation, but if there’s a host, they are expected to introduce people to get things going – ‘facilitation’ means ‘making something easy for others to do’, not telling them what to do
• food and drink are conversational lubricants – apart from anything else they provide a better ice- breaker than talking about the weather?  You can praise the cake (bad cake is rare); or moan about the tea (well-made tea, sadly, is also rare) and  find out about someone’s values as well as start a conversation.

 

Community Conversation

If you are trying to bring different communities in a neighbourhood together in a dialogue about more than tea and cake, or the weather, then try to focus on things they are interested in, have views on and feel OK to talk and listen about.  The starting points are:

• the environment, built and natural and including parks, roads, buses and cycle routes
• community safety and community spirit
• young people – schools, families and services for young people.

These are shared issues.  Whereas, people generally don’t want to start off by talking in public about their health (especially mental health), employment, relationships or money – which are all very important, but very personal.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t, or shouldn’t, aim to get these things talked about in public, but that they shouldn’t be the first thing you talk about.  Hearing and speaking about them requires trust, which is what you are aiming to build up by talking about stuff that is shared first.

 

Dealing with Discord

If there is discord between communities about one or many issues, then try shifting the frame of reference.  Make the conversation about another place (perhaps only a small area that everyone can agree needs improving) or another time.  So,if the differences between communities are long-term and deep-seated, then the challenge is to find some short-term things that everyone can agree on.  If the differences are acute and about immediate problems (which is probably even more common), then talk about history and the future to get people thinking together long-term, about a shared vision for the place.

Where there is deep-seated discord, bear in mind that dialogue is just a start: you shouldn’t lead people to expect it to ‘cure’ everything straight away.  In any case, you will probably be aiming to bring about reconciliation (making things ok, so we can get on with life) rather than resolution (sorting things altogether, absolutely and forever).  Your task as a local leader is to enable people to talk openly about things they may hold very dear and, sometimes, to reconsider them.

Although listening and talking take time, experience – even in places in which communities have been at war – shows bringing people together depends on it.

 

What’s Next?

Look up Structured Dialogue Method – a way of learning from people’s experience using storytelling

Check out World Cafe – a way of enabling conversation that aims to draw out learning, literally

Back to the start of this section on Community Dialogue

Or on to the next section – on Social Media

OR – follow the menu on the right to have a look at other parts of the guide.