Reviewed by Will Phillips

When two or more perspectives come together to address an issue or make a decision they invariably choose one of two paths. The one we are all trained for is the Debate Path. This is where each side tries to prove the other wrong. Sometimes with direct attacks: 'You are wrong!' 'I disagree!' and sometimes we try to win by persuasion or more subtly with 'education'. At times we over power the other side and win, but... we win without their hearts and minds.

The second path is the Dialogue Path. This is where all sides are involved in a search for better understanding, before deciding. Daniel Yankelovich has written a gem of a book on "The Magic of Dialogue" published by Simon and Schuster in 1999. It is a good introduction to the Dialogue Path and its strategies and practices. The book also presents many practical success stories where dialogue has succeeded and where debate has not.

has been training people in Dialogue since 1995. We used it as the core method of The New Visions Process manual written for the Pew Charitable Trust to implement the American Association of Museums' Excellence and Equity white paper.

I have listed below Fifteen Strategies from The Magic of Dialogue which closely parallel the fourteen Guidelines to Dialogue that uses. I encourage you to purchase and digest this book—for your business, your marriage and your family.

Strategy 1: Err on the side of including people who disagree.

Strategy 2: Initiate dialogue through a gesture of empathy.

Strategy 3: Check for the presence of all three core requirements of dialogue-equality, emphatic listening, and surfacing assumptions non judgmentally-and learn how to introduce the missing ones.

Strategy 4: Minimize the level of mistrust before pursuing practical objectives.

Strategy 5: Keep dialogue and decision making compartmentalized.

Strategy 6: Focus on common interests, not divisive ones.

Strategy 7: Use specific cases to raise general issues.

Strategy 8: Bring forth your own assumptions before speculating on those of others.

Strategy 9: Clarify assumptions that lead to subculture distortions.

Strategy 10: Where applicable, identify mistrust as the real source of misunderstandings.

Strategy 11: Expose old scripts to a reality check.

Strategy 12: Focus on conflicts between value systems, not people.

Strategy 13: Be sure trust exists before addressing transference distortions.

Strategy 14: When appropriate, express the emotions that accompany strongly held values.

Strategy 15: Encourage relationships in order to humanize transactions.