Civic Diplomacy

Dialogue is a sophisticated skill often underestimated and oversimplified. As humans, we evolved to perform this complex task intuitively, which can make it easy to overlook and hard to refine. When our conversations don’t achieve the results we hope for, it’s often challenging to know how to improve. In today’s polarized landscape, many careers, especially in fields like criminal justice, education, health care, and social work, face increasing scrutiny and political pressure. Professionals in these areas often confront negative assumptions, conspiracy theories, and public criticism, despite being motivated by a commitment to serve others and improve society.

Societies train people on the technical and field knowledge they need to enter the workforce, but we typically do not address what are called Civic Diplomacy skills. Civic Diplomacy can be defined as actions of self-awareness, self-regulation, and communication that help maintain peaceable dynamics in one’s daily interpersonal interactions and environments. It involves inclusive consensus-building and de-escalation skills development. These skills are particularly important to people working in careers that serve the public, particularly those that are non-profit and, thus, non-partisan.

This Waging Dialogue Experience workshop will introduce you to a 3 part process of dialogue:

1. Listening: The most fundamental part of dialogue is listening. Before you can engage in a back and forth process, you must understand that every individual has their own expressions and interpretations of language. Understand your innate responses and learn to listen more effectively by examining your thought patterns and assumptions. We will delve into what psychologists refer to as “psychic reality”
2. Dialogue: Once listening is established, then dialogue can occur. We will walk you through best practices for initiating and continuing dialogue. At the conclusion of the workshop, you will be asked to participate in a dialogue using one of the resources provided by the Listen First Project.
3. Meta-Dialogue Analysis: In any professional relationship, reflection between meetings and follow up is paramount. It is also important to learn techniques for meta-analysis of your dialogues to help you continue to develop these skills moving forward. The Waging Dialogue Experience is a lifelong project of personal improvement!