Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together: A Pioneering Approach to Communicating in Business and in Life

As Aristotle put it long ago, human beings are distinguished from other species by our ability to use language. Yet too often, at our jobs and in our business, we don't listen to one another. Invested in our views, we explain when we should inquire. Caught up in our own preconceptions, we disguise our feelings and fears, and hide our very meaning. Our talk, in fact, drives us apart. In this engaging book, based on over ten years of research with corporations, managers, business and community leaders, William Isaacs, the director of the Dialogue Project at MIT, shows how problems between managers and employees, or between companies or divisions within a larger corporation, stem from an inability to conduct a successful dialogue. He demonstrates that dialogue is more than just the exchange of words, but rather, the embrace of different points of view — literally the art of thinking together. Through his work with Shell, Intel, Motorola, Hewlett Packard and other companies, Dr. Isaacs widens the ways dialogue can be (and has been) applied to bridge the communication gap in organizations and Communities.

About The Authors:

William Isaacs is Founder and President of Dialogos, a leadership consulting and strategy development firm based in Cambridge, MA. He co-founded the Organizational Learning Center at MIT and is a Senior Lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

He is the author of Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, which has been translated into many languages, and was featured in Fast Company as a guide to “the secret of good informal conversation.” It has been acclaimed by a variety of reviewers as the definitive guide to profound change through speaking and listening. It is also frequently cited and used as a central guide to the practice of dialogue in settings around the world.