1. ~
2011 10
(Philip Adam Kahane
Thomas) – 11 4-6
www.cpyen.org
(deliberation)
!
20-30
(Public Conversations Project)
Complexity
1

2. Vision Guatemala
( :
: 49 )
( The Dialogue Approach)
-
Pruitt, B. and Thomas, P. (2007) Democratic Dialogue-A Handbook for Practitioners. Washington, DC: OAS, International IDEA, and UNDP, p49.
(Philip Thomas) (Generative Change Community)
2005
The CP Yen Foundation invites you participate in Philip’s workshop on November 4-6, 2011, 9am-5pm. Visit
www.cpyen.org to register.

3. C P Y E N F O U N D A T I O N
Mul$-­‐stakeholder
Dialogic
Change:
an
interview
with
Philip
Thomas
October 2011
This October issue of CPYF’s Dialogue Newsletter is an Adam Kahane, a social change facilitator and Philip’s
interview with Philip Thomas - facilitator of the multi- colleague, said “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re
stakeholder dialogic change process workshop to be part of the problem.”
held in Taipei on November 4-6, 2011. You are
welcome to join & register at www.cpyen.org. This Therefore, as facilitators we need a language that
event aims to create a space for participants to learn addresses how results matter, thinking matters,
design and implementation of processes that build relationships matters, and process matters; and facilitators
collaborative relationships within and across different, need processes that enable these different aspects of
and even adversarial, groups in society. This newsletter change. For this reason dialogue & deliberation is
is intended to convey the value of multi-stakeholder recognized by the UN as a key social change process.
dialogic processes through Philip’s own words.
Pattern 2: Dysfunctional relationships across sectors
Q: How did you personally become interested in The real problem is not the issue, it’s the relationship. We
multi-stakeholder dialogic change processes? need to recognize that if you don’t have functional
relationship with the “other” you can’t solve the problem.
I come from a Mennonite background which emphasizes
peace, and I started my career as an activist in Latin Q: What are some experiences that really influenced
America; so I’m aware of the reality of power imbalance your understanding of multi-stakeholder change
and the challenge of wanting change but not knowing processes?
how to do it. I quickly became aware that for any issue -
whether it’s human rights, labor & government - there’s For example, the El Salvadorian war was a fight between
enough advocates, but what’s really lacking is people guerrillas and the government. A private dialogue was
willing to step out of that and hold a space for people to held for individuals from both sides to meet over many
come together. Like it or not, we’ve got to engage the months in a living room to talk on the one thing they share
enemy. So I got really excited about dialogue. in common: minimizing violence. Nine months in to the
meetings a strike occurred on the streets and the police
Q: What patterns have you observed across nations were beating one of the people who had attended our
and communities of people’s struggle with social dialogue meetings. A government official in the dialogue
change? commented that before the dialogues he would have
cheered on the police’s actions, but after the dialogues he
20-30 years ago an assumption was popularly held that thought: “that’s not the way to do it.” When a shift like
governments, civil society & businesses ought to deal that happens at the individual level, especially in people
with challenges on their own. Today there’s a greater with influence their transformation can lead to larger
awareness that this requires crossing sectoral lines. sectoral transformation. Dialogue enables that to happen.
Pattern 1: Increasing awareness of interdependence. Another example is the controversy on abortion in the
New participatory methodologies are needed to raise the United States. The Public Conversations Project hosted
quality of participation. There’s no lack of private dialogues between pro- and anti-abortion leaders
communication today, but there is a lack of for over 15 years. A ground rule was that neither side will
understanding. try to persuade the other. That allowed them to maintain
Challenge 1: Processes are “expert” driven, and today’s their difference and to find opportunities for collaboration
issues cannot be deferred to experts because of on projects.
Challenge 2: Complexity. “Complicated” issues can be
resolved through problem solving, like the question We need safe environments for conversations. For
“how to send a rocket to the moon” scientists can solve example, in Guatemala we held citizen cafes at a yogurt
that problem and replicate it. “Complex” issues shop where people knew that every Thursday they could
however are analogous to the question “how do you talk about an important social issue - it’s not a decision
parent a child?” Complexity involves so many variables making space - it’s just people talking about things, and it
that there’s no one answer to it; complexity requires was hugely successful with hundreds of people showing
paying attention and learning by doing to continue up each week.
working for change in a context that’s always evolving.

4. Q: What about the results after dialogue?
Vision Guatemala was held after a war where people had neither time nor space to talk with their enemies. Yet
through the dialogues people created deep friendships across deep divides. The result is that seven years later when a
political party became violent; people in our dialogue circles called their friends on the other side and said: “look at
what your people doing, call your friends and lets intervene to prevent violence.” They prevented countless people
from being injured thanks to their collaborative relationships - that’s a huge victory for dialogue.
Dialogue is always necessary and always insufficient for change to happen because it also requires budgets and
actions to realize the change. So facilitators need to manage expectations. Even when a dialogue formally ends, we
need to continue cultivating relationships to be able to collaborate again in the future. Just like in your relationship
with your spouse - you may never feel like you’ve “arrived” - it’s always evolving. Facilitators must work to build
capacity in the participants to do this work without the facilitator. We can celebrate that we’ve arrived at each point,
but don’t expect an end-point.
Q: How do you evaluate? What do you evaluate?
Personally, I evaluate the stories people tell. The first day of our workshop will start with that: “How do you evaluate
change?” Each person will name it differently.
Much of the work of dialogue goes unnoticed. So in evaluation are you valuing only the peace treaty or are you
noticing what’s different in trends, where there’s an increased amount of people talking together, are they more
inclusive or not?
Paying attention to the intangibles is important. Einstein said: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not
everything that counts can be counted.” In other words, what you don’t see matters and what you see may not matter.
So identify people who have a lot of social capital and that because of their transformation others shifts consequently
happen.
At the end of the day all that we are is a network of relationships; and relationships are never finished. That’s very
visible in democratic dialogue - we’re tackling big problems that don’t fit into any one government term.
The following table offers steps through which one can move from the governing principles, goals, qualities and
guidelines for behaviors in a dialogic process.
The Dialogue Approach:
Governing Goals Qualities Behaviors
Principles
• Inclusiveness • Engage all parts of the system • Respectfulness • Inquire to learn
• Joint ownership • Create the conditions for change • Transparency • Share what you know
• Learning on the basis of important issues. • Openness • Listen empathetically
• Humanity • Foster learning: facilitate deeper • Empathy • Reflect back what you are hearing
• Long-term understanding Authenticity • Explore underlying assumptions -
perspective • Create the sense of safety • Patience yours and those of others
required for openness • Flexibility • Acknowledge emotions as well as
• Foster commitment to achieving ideas and opinions
sustainable change. • Adjust course to reflect new
knowledge or undersetanding
Pruitt, B. and Thomas, P. (2007) Democratic Dialogue-A Handbook for Practitioners. Washington, DC: OAS, International IDEA, and UNDP, p49.
Philip Thomas founded the Generative Change Community, a learning platform for individuals and institutions
seeking to create capacity for multi-stakeholder processes as a strategy for social change. It was launched in 2005 as
a global community of international development practitioners focused on strengthening the world’s capacity to
address complex challenges collectively through dialogic processes.
The CP Yen Foundation invites you participate in Philip’s workshop on November 4-6, 2011, 9am-5pm. Visit
www.cpyen.org to register.