Sustained Dialogue
Apr 15th 2010stf6992Business & Life
At the end of a summer intern program several years ago, I asked one of our interns to give us some honest feedback on our organization. She said, “You guys need to learn to communicate. Communications is active. It’s more than just sending messages. There needs to be a dialogue, and it has to be sustained in order for real communications to occur.”
Hmmm.
I thought about that one for a while. I had a launch and leave mentality. I certainly sent a lot of messages, and I received lots in return. But she was right. There was no sustained dialogue and no meaningful advancement of thought that would truly benefit the organization.
The toughest of issues require the highest levels of “sustained dialogue”. It’s not acceptable to throw the issue out into the morass of information in an organization today and then sit back and hope that it will somehow be pulled out of the frenzy of discussions that are occurring.
If you throw it in, you are responsible for the sustained dialogue!