Listening with Spirit and the Art of Team Dialogue

Abstract

Listening with spirit is the key skill which teams need to attain and sustain creative dialogue. This is especially true for organizational learning. Building on the distinction between dialogue and discussion, poses the question: “What makes dialogue dialogue?” and also offers tools for dialogue. The core of team dialogue is collectively listening with spirit, that is: in a group, people listen (individually) with selfless receptivity to each others′ ideas, thereby emptying themselves to create a common vessel which – shaped by and sustained by the power of the group′s collective listening – receives and contains a collective spirit. Draws on multiple disciplines including ethnography and the spiritual science of Austrian philosopher and founder of Waldorf Education, Rudolph Steiner. Provides examples of how this approach has improved the creativity of work teams. Also offers an explanation of how future search conferences work using the idea of creating a container via collective listening.