Dialogue is merely asking questions of each other out of curiosity in order to better know the other person. Here’s an example.
“I know what you mean” is the great dialogue-breaker.
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Many years ago, my wife, Jean, and I were teaching about 300 people at a church workshop how to dialogue. I asked Jean what she likes best about the forest. I had never talked with her about that before.
“Sitting by a stream” was her answer.
I was asking if she liked the trees, the animals, or something else in the forest, so it seemed to me that Jean had not answered my question. But she answered it as she understood it. So I went with what she said, not what I expected her to say. Correcting her would have made her feel that talking with me is dangerous. And, her answer was correct — just not what I was expecting. So I asked her, “Why is sitting by a stream what you like best?”
Jean answered, “I like to listen to the water flowing.”
That was an answer I could understand. I, too, like the sound of a stream. However, it wasn’t important that I could relate to her answer. In fact, because I also enjoyed the sound of a stream, I was in danger of thinking she liked a stream for the same reason I did. That would have led me to say something like, “I know what you mean.”
“I know what you mean” is the great dialogue-breaker. And it is definitely the wrong thing to say — or
even to think!
It is wrong for two big reasons.
- It shuts off the dialogue because it communicates that there is nothing more to be understood. (There is always more to understand.)
- It communicates that you are not much interested in listening to the other person anymore.
After Jean answered that she liked to listen to the water flowing, I asked the Basic Dialogue Question of All Time — “Why?”
That is when she said something revealing a deeper truth about her that I had not known.
Jean answered, “Listening to the water flowing over the rocks takes my mind off the things I worry about.”
I was now at that deeper level where I could really learn what life is like for Jean. I did not tell her she shouldn’t worry. That would not have been of much help. I had just learned that she does worry. A lot of the time! I had not known that.
Jean was starting to open up. My simple, nonjudgmental dialogue questions were convincing her that it was safe to open up. Deeper trust between us was developing. If I kept asking innocent questions, questions without any hidden motive other than trying to understand her, I would be of more help to her than ever before.
While “Why?” is the basic question, “How?” and “What?” are great secondary questions if “Why?” doesn’t seem to apply. The key is to keep finding out interesting things about the other person.
When Jean said that the sound of the stream drowned out her worries, I could have gone deeper, but we were in front of a lot of people at the workshop. Later, I asked her, “Why do you have all those worries going through your head?” She replied, “I don’t know. I just do.”
This signaled that our dialogue on that subject was over. She now needed time to think. It was time to go on to another topic or to ask her if she has a favorite river to sit by.
Sometime in the near future I would return to this dialogue and ask, “Have you figured out why you have all those worries going through your head?”
