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“What is key here is not just individual creativity, but even more so, the ability to be
co-creative together with multiple stakeholders, including internal staff as well as
external customers...”
Co-Creative Dialogue for Meeting
Practical Challenges
New Approaches
By Rosa Zubizarreta Several decades ago, during an earlier
lifetime in education-related work, I was
hired as a writer at an education reform
non-profit. This organization promoted
constructivist approaches for improving
students’ academic learning and develop-
ing their socio-emotional intelligence. My
own background as a teacher had been in
language arts, so I was well-versed in using
dialogic approaches for helping students
engage with texts and explore questions of
values and meaning. Yet I remember being
genuinely puzzled at first by this organiza-
tion’s mathematics department: how might
one engage in constructivist dialogue, in a
field where it seems obvious that there is
one right answer?
I offer this story in connection with the
initial reluctance some of us may feel when
considering dialogic approaches within
certain hard realms, whether with children
or adults. There has been much fertile
growth in the realm of Dialogic OD in the
last several decades (Bushe & Marshak,
2009). This includes a growing number of
emergence-based dialogic methods, each
with its own gifts, niches, and applications.
Some of these emergence-based methods
have applications in realms that may, at
first blush, appear to be an unlikely fit.
In that long-ago initial encounter with
constructivism in mathematics educa-
tion, I was given an article to read that
contained an enlightening description of a
classroom dialogue, where various teams
of students were offering their solutions
to a given math problem, and describing
aloud the various ways they had arrived at
such. As the students gave voice to their
divergent thought processes, they became
aware of a diversity of valid approaches to
arrive at a given solution. In addition, they
also had the opportunity to discover their
own misunderstandings and self-correct
their own thinking as needed, all within a
supportive climate of experimentation and
respect—thus encouraging the emergence
of a deeper understanding of the underly-
ing concepts at work.
While this example opened my
mind to the possibility of using dialogic
approaches in other realms, it also made
it clear that this kind of learning requires
skillful facilitation, and is not reducible
to letting students loose to learn on their
own. The connections between this story
and new dialogic approaches for facilitating
groups addressing practical challenges will
be developed further below. Next, I want to
briefly consider the subject of co-creativity.
Creativity and Non-Linearity
In the realm of business, creativity has
been recently heralded as “the most
important leadership quality” for success,
an “essential asset” that must “permeate
the enterprise.” Leaders are encouraged to
“practice and encourage experimentation
at all levels of the business” and to “equip
their entire organization to be a catalyst for
creativity” (IBM, 2010). What is key here is
not just individual creativity, but even more
so, the ability to be co-creative together
with multiple stakeholders, including
internal staff as well as external customers
(Ramaswamy & Gouillart, 2010).
Yet there are many ways that our
47Co-Creative Dialogue for Meeting Practical Challenges: New Approaches
organizations and methodologies con-
spire against creativity. For example, while
we know about the non-linear nature of
creative thought (DeBono, 1992), many
collaborative design/collaborative problem-
solving methodologies are still struc-
tured in a linear fashion. This includes
interest-based stakeholder consensus
methodologies as well as group problem-
solving processes that begin with getting
agreement on defining the problem, then
on all of the solution requirements, then
ask participants to prioritize all of those
requirements; only in the last stage do we
get to begin looking at actual solutions.
Of course, even when attempting to
follow a linear model, most of us acknowl-
edge that real-life processes are seldom
quite so neat and tidy. Nonetheless, the
conventional model is one of step-by-
step progression (Figure 1). In contrast, a
contemporary example from the field of
software development can help us envision
other alternatives (Figure 2). Agile method-
ologies have been developed as alternatives
to the conventional waterfall approach,
partly based on the key understanding that
early solution attempts or prototypes can be
crucial for deepening our understanding of
the problem itself.
What might our collaborative
approaches look like if we incorporated
this agile insight regarding the value of
initial solutions? One initial example along
these lines is the concept of rapid-cycle
proto typing (Senge et al., 2004; Scharmer,
2007), which is a component of the
Change Lab process (Bojer, Roehl, Knuth,
& Magner, 2005). Next, I will describe
two other facilitation approaches that also
incorporate this key insight, albeit in a dif-
ferent manner than the Change Labs.
Dialogue Mapping and
Dynamic Facilitation
I first encountered the above charts in
2002, in a Dialogue Mapping workshop
led by Jeff Conklin, who was illustrat-
ing cognitive science research findings
on opportunity-driven problem-solving.
In fact, he did not mention “agile” at all;
his green line was labeled “Designer/
subject process.” His intention was to
help workshop participants understand
why the approach of welcoming initial
solutions was such an effective element of
his non-linear, software-assisted facilitation
approach, designed specifically for address-
ing wicked problems (Conklin, 2005).
Unlike the math class described
earlier, wicked problems are not ones that
have a single right answer. Yet these highly
complex problems call for actionable, real-
world solutions. Thus, they also fall into
the realm of hard problems that are typi-
cally (albeit ineffectively) addressed with
waterfall approaches (Conklin, 2005).
At the same time, there seems to
be a growing appreciation of the need to
address complex problems in creative and
iterative ways (for example, see Innes and
Booher’s 2010 description of collective
bricolage, pp.136-138). Non-linear meth-
ods are beginning to gain greater traction.
In their recent work, Culmsee and Awati
(2011) illustrate Dialog Mapping in action
by describing powerful case studies of
multiple-stakeholder projects in Australia.
In this article, I will be sharing
some brief case examples from Dynamic
Facilitation, a low-tech dialogic approach
designed to reliably evoke creative break-
throughs (Rough, 2002a, 1997). While
also incorporating the key principle of
welcoming initial solutions, it does not
require any software. Some basic ways in
which Dynamic Facilitation differs from
Analyze data
Gather data
Problem
Solution
Linear
Time
Implement solution
Formulate solution
!!
!
!
Figure 1: Traditional Group Problem-Solving Process
Problem
Solution
Linear method
Agile method
Time
Analyze data
Gather data
Implement solution
Formulate solution
Analyze data
Gather data
Implement solution
Formulate solution
Figure 2: Comparing Linear Method and Agile Method
OD PRACTITIONER Vol. 45 No. 1 201348
conventional approaches to facilitation
include: a) welcoming initial solutions
rather than postponing solutions; b) facili-
tator multipartiality rather than neutrality;
c) protecting the emergence of a creative
field through spatial redirection rather
than temporal constraints; d) retroactively
organizing information rather than using
an agenda; and e) holding space for emer-
gent convergences rather than facilitating
toward convergence. Next, we will see what
this approach looks like in practice.
First Case Example
The setting for this meeting was a small
winery experiencing both record growth
and ensuing growing pains. The sales
and the warehouse department had been
experiencing some friction among them.
During this particular joint meeting, the
intention was to explore a frustrating situ-
ation regarding truckers who often arrived
late. These truckers delivered cases of
wine to stores and restaurants, the win-
ery’s customers. Customers, in turn, often
bought their wine via a broker, an outside
middleperson who interfaced with the
sales department.
After a brief introduction to the
facilitation process, we began by invit-
ing someone to jump in, and sketch out
the situation as they saw it: “This is not a
small company anymore… we deserve to be
treated as a large corporate business… we
are at a point now where we could choose
to do things differently, but we are bent
over a barrel, because we don’t have any
repercussions in place for truckers who
are late.”
This initial solution of establishing
repercussions evoked different perspec-
tives: “We should treat our customers, the
way they treat us…. if it is a particularly
valuable customer who has placed a last-
minute order, it may make sense to go
many extra miles… we should still bend
over backward, as long as it doesn’t get in
our way.”
Other participants proposed additional
possibilities: “whatever policies we create,
we need to make sure the brokers know
about them... we could charge the truckers
for being late… we could have customers
pay a ‘rush charge’ for late orders… we
could ‘ding’ the brokers, whenever the
truckers are late.”
Concurrently, participants were also
surfacing concerns with regard to one
another’s solutions: “It could affect our
image negatively if we start charging
truckers who are late. It would change it
to a more corporate image... not sure we
can charge truckers for being late. It would
need to be directed at the distributor… a
‘late charge’ to the truckers would take lots
of manpower to create and enforce, and
could cause a lot of frustration…if we were
going to institute a ‘late charge,’ we would
need to give the truckers advance notice.”
Other relevant information—histori-
cal, procedural environmental—was also
surfacing: “Sometimes we have in fact
turned away truckers who were late. They
in turn billed us, and when we didn’t pay
them, they short-paid us on other stuff, to
get back at us… Currently we give truckers
a few hours’ window. If we were to create a
harder policy, first we’d need to get upper
management to commit to it, and then
we’d need to let the customers know…
Other companies turn away truckers.
They don’t care—we are different because
we do care about the customer getting
their wine.”
During this part of the conversation,
the main facilitator interventions consisted
of listening to and drawing out each par-
ticipant (“Can you say more about that?”),
inviting them to shift their complaints into
creativity (“How would you address that
issue, if it were up to you?”), checking for
meaning, and recording each contribution
on one of four charts: solutions, concerns,
data, and problem-statements. At one point
the facilitator asked a manager to wait
until a participant had finished speaking,
before voicing her concern regarding that
idea. Whenever a concern arose regard-
ing a proposed solution, the facilitator had
the participant redirect that concern to
the facilitator, instead of toward the idea
originator.
After exploring a variety of possible
solutions with no easy answers in sight,
participants began shifting into a more
reflective mood. At this point the facilita-
tion role consisted of “just listening” while
participants experienced the challenge of
their current situation. Teresa, a warehouse
employee was describing how frustrated
she had been about the most recent inci-
dent of lateness, where she’d had to stay in
the warehouse for six hours past the end of
her shift. Suddenly Sally, a sales associate,
jumped into the conversation: “What?!! You
had to wait here, for how long?”
Other participants were shaking their
head; this was not news to anyone. Yet it
seemed as though Sally was just hearing
this for the first time. “I told you,” said
Teresa, “I told you I had to miss my after-
noon class, and call around like crazy for a
babysitter.”
Sally looked deeply chagrined. “I
knew there was a problem, but I thought
you warehouse people were sort of
exaggerating.”
Allan from the warehouse chimed in,
pointing to the charts: “Well, there really
is a problem, and that’s what we’ve been
working on here.” As Sally’s gazed floated
over the charts, suddenly she brightened
and said, “Well you know, the brokers are
Many of us experience being able to think more clearly, beyond
our usual limitations, whenever we are fortunate enough to be
listened to in a non-judgmental , supportive way. Meanwhile,
current brain science supports the crucial role of a supportive
listener, through its findings regarding how quickly our
physiology can shut down from an expansive creative mode,
to a protective and defensive one, especially in response to
minute social cues...
49Co-Creative Dialogue for Meeting Practical Challenges: New Approaches
the ones who hire the trucking companies.
Next time anything like this happens, I
need to know about it, so that I can give
this feedback to the brokers. And if it’s a
pattern, I will definitely be encouraging the
brokers to hire a different company.”
Exploring the Story
There’s always more to a story, and any
story can be read in different ways. Below,
I will explore some of the key principles
of this approach, as illustrated by this
example. Yet first, I want to clarify what I
am not saying.
I am not claiming that we would
not have arrived at a similar result, had
we used another method. Sometimes we
obtain results in spite of our methods,
while other times our methods more
directly support our outcomes. So the point
is not that what happened here would
not have happened otherwise. Maybe it
would have!
At the same time, I have found great
value in using approaches that work with
and encourage creativity, rather than
constrain it with attempts to over-manage.
Just as Open Space Technology fore-
grounds, optimizes, and supports what
tends to happen in any conference during
coffee breaks (or what tends to happen at
the office, around the water cooler), some
open meeting technologies serve to fore-
ground, optimize, and support co-creative
flow and meaning-making. These large-
group and small-group emergence-based
methods can be combined in synergistic
ways; for example, Howard, Galarneau,
Perez and Shaw (2005) explore how Open
Space Technology can be combined with
Dynamic Facilitation.
Returning to the winery, here are some
key principles I would like to highlight:
Eliciting creativity by welcoming initial
solutions. From a theoretical perspective,
we can understand the need for people
to “empty themselves” or “download” the
solutions they already have, before some-
thing new can be created. Indeed, we often
hear from practitioners that the energetics
of using Dynamic Facilitation appears to
embody the Theory U model (Scharmer,
2007); for an intriguing story that paral-
lels the pause at the bottom of the “U,” see
Rough (1991).
However, the benefits of welcoming
initial solutions are not just limited to
downloading. They also include honoring
participant’s individual creative work to
date; helping participants begin to listen
better to one another, through the experi-
ence of being fully heard; and giving par-
ticipants the opportunity to realize, as they
compare notes, the various assumptions
and incomplete perspectives that were
embedded in their initial solution attempts
(Zubizarreta, 2006).
At the same time, this key principle
runs counter to most conventional facili-
tation wisdom (including interest-based
negotiation), which typically asks partici-
pants to restrain themselves from jumping
to solutions with the positive intention of
helping them detach from their own initial
strategies. From the viewpoint of Dynamic
Facilitation and Dialogue Mapping, we
support the intended outcome of broaden-
ing perspectives, yet offer a different and
paradoxical approach for getting there.
Taking all sides. The stance of active multi-
partiality is different from the conventional
facilitator role of being neutral. Instead of
a transactional view of communication,
where each speaker is conveying a discrete,
pre-formed cluster of meaning, we can
invoke a more relational process, where
meaning is actively co-constructed between
people (Pearce & Pearce, 2000). This is not
only applicable for interactions between
participants, but also between a participant
who is speaking and the facilitator who is
listening; we find much common ground
with Pearce’s perspective that the role of
the facilitator is to “shape emerging pat-
terns of communication so that multiple
voices and perspectives are honored, and
the tensions among them are maintained”
(Pearce & Pearce, 2000).
Yet viewing the role of the facilitator as
an active, co-creative listener is not only a
postmodern perspective; from a construc-
tivist stance, Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal
development” in children (Vygotsky, 1978)
may well be a phenomenon that contin-
ues on throughout adulthood. Many of us
experience being able to think more clearly,
beyond our usual limitations, whenever
we are fortunate enough to be listened
to in a non-judgmental , supportive way.
Meanwhile, current brain science supports
the crucial role of a supportive listener,
through its findings regarding how quickly
our physiology can shut down from an
expansive creative mode, to a protective
and defensive one, especially in response to
minute social cues (Rock, 2008).
From any of these perspectives, we
have a significant opportunity as facilita-
tors to support each participant by actively
engaging with them in the meaning-
making process, letting each person know
what sense we are making of what we are
hearing—not as a mirror coldly reflecting
back, but as active participants in receiving
the gift that each participant is seeking to
offer. Jean Rough, one of the founders of
Dynamic Facilitation, calls this we-flection
(Zubizarreta, 2012).
Actively protecting the emergence of
creative field. We saw one example of this
when the manager at the winery was inter-
rupting her staff member, and the facilita-
tor intervened. Continually re-directing any
concerns toward the facilitator is another
aspect of this active protection, and is key
for creating a field where creative thinking
and critical thinking can co-exist.
We are all familiar with brainstorm-
ing, where creative idea generation and
critical idea evaluation are separated in
time. Another example is the brilliant Six
Thinking Hats model (DeBono, 1992,
pp. 77–85) where there are different times
for “green hat thinking” and “yellow
hat thinking,” as distinct from “black
hat thinking.” In contrast, in Dialogue
Mapping and Dynamic Facilitation the
facilitator protects participants’ creativity
in space. In Dynamic Facilitation, we ask
the participant to direct their concern
to the facilitator, who writes it on the
concerns chart. In Dialogue Mapping,
the concern is placed on the growing
logic tree of the electronic shared display,
visibly supplementing (rather than
supplanting) the idea that provoked
the concern. In both approaches, the
spatial redirection serves to minimize
OD PRACTITIONER Vol. 45 No. 1 201350
interpersonal anxiety, while maximizing
creative tension.
Second Case Example
This second case example portrays a longer
process, a two-day strategic planning
retreat. The client was an accounting soft-
ware reseller, servicing small-to-mid-sized
firms. The cast included the founder and
CEO, as well as nearly all of the remaining
employees of this small company where a
recent economic downturn had resulted in
a string of layoffs.
When the CEO of the firm initiated
a request for a strategic planning retreat,
he acknowledged that during the last year,
he had not called any whole-staff meet-
ings since “I only had bad news to share.”
However, now they had “hit bottom,” were
fully lean, and “had nowhere to go but up.”
So he felt it was time to rebuild morale by
involving the staff in a collaborative plan-
ning process. At the same time, the CEO
was very clear about retaining his final
decision-making authority, and saw the
purpose of the two-day meeting as solely
that of input-gathering.
Not having worked with this company
previously, our conversational arc included
initial individual interviews with each
staff member. This was an opportunity to
establish rapport by exploring organiza-
tional strengths (“What’s working well?”),
organizational challenges (“What do you
see as the main areas that need attention?”)
as well as individual creative initiatives (“If
it were up to you, what do you think needs
to be done about it?”) while at the same
time, reaffirming the agreed-upon frame
of input-gathering. Unlike a typical action
research process, however, I did not do any-
thing with this information, instead I asked
each person if they would be comfortable
offering their input to the whole group dur-
ing the upcoming two days.
During the first day with the whole
staff, I proceeded as described above
in the first case example; drawing out
participants’ initial solutions, redirecting
any concerns, checking for understanding,
and recording their various perspectives,
creative solutions, and concerns on chart
paper. During the course of the first day, we
thoroughly covered the walls.
That evening, after typing up a raw
version of the notes, I also did a light
sort. Our day-long, free-ranging conversa-
tion clustered easily into a set of themes.
Placing the corresponding solution ideas,
concerns, and perspectives under these the-
matic headers, resulted in a document that
clearly highlighted how much the group
had accomplished.
Day two started with handing out both
sets of notes, the raw as well as the light
sort, and inviting participants to correct,
modify, or add anything that was needed.
From there, participants jumped into the
conversation again, now at a deeper level.
During our mid-morning break, the CEO
called me aside. “This is great!” he said. “I
know originally I said I just wanted input.
But I think the way the conversation is
going, I’ll be able to make a quick sketch
of a plan over lunch, and then bring it back
to the group this afternoon to get their take
on it. It just seems really obvious, what the
next steps are that we need to be taking.”
Exploring the Second Case Example
Again, there are many ways we might read
this story. For now, I’d like to highlight two
main themes:
Retroactively organizing information.
Rather than using an agenda to keep
participants on topic, we can consider the
agenda to be the creative process of the
group, as it emerges through the creative
process of each individual within the group
and their interaction with the whole. All
of the information that is gathered can be
then organized retroactively.
Clarity around decision-making. I often
invite clients to engage in creative dialogue
as a “tilling the soil” in preparation for their
customary decision-making process. At the
same time, it’s quite common for much of
the need for subsequent decision-making
to evaporate, as the way forward becomes
clear and obvious to all involved. When
outcomes are arrived at as a result of an
emergent process, there seems to be much
higher levels of alignment, motivation, and
follow-through; hence the value of evoking
outcomes through co-creativity and emer-
gence rather than negotiation.
Challenges and Limitations
In this section I will focus on some of the
challenges encountered by new practitio-
ners, as well as by those of us seeking to
share this work with our colleagues.
Given an adequate orientation to
the sometimes disorienting nature of a
non-linear method, participants seem to
generally appreciate and find value in this
approach. Yet as with any method, a great
deal depends on the initial contracting
work with the client. Also, as we saw in the
second example, dialogic processes can be
effective for inviting greater participation,
Given an adequate orientation to the sometimes disorienting
nature of a non-linear method, participants seem to generally
appreciate and find value in this approach. Yet as with any
method, a great deal depends on the initial contracting work
with the client. Also, as we saw in the second example, dialogic
processes can be effective for inviting greater participation, and
even co-creation, when authority structures are clear. However,
like many other processes, they work less well when leadership
is unclear or disputed—likely due to the greater difficulty of
engaging a group in a creative flow when there is a high degree
of basic anxiety in the background.
51
Co-Creative Dialogue for Meeting Practical Challenges: New Approaches
and even co-creation, when authority struc-
tures are clear. However, like many other
processes, they work less well when leader-
ship is unclear or disputed—likely due to
the greater difficulty of engaging a group in
a creative flow when there is a high degree
of basic anxiety in the background.
One challenge often encountered from
fellow practitioners is the perspective that
“this isn’t dialogue, since you can’t have
dialogue when you’re talking about solu-
tions!” As I described in the beginning of
this paper, dialogue can serve worthwhile
ends even in the context of a mathematics
classroom, where there may be multiple
ways to obtain a given solution. Co-creative
dialogue is even more useful in situations
where the solutions need to be created
freshly, through the participation and col-
laboration of everyone involved.
Practitioners are sometimes also
uncomfortable with the initial phase of the
process, where participants are intention-
ally asked to talk to the facilitator instead
of directly to one another, especially when
voicing concerns. This runs directly coun-
ter to what has conventionally been taught
as good practice.
Having a more active facilitator role
during the initial phase allows participants
to “come as they are,” without any initial
training in dialogic conversation. Rather
than laying out norms, we are creating a
developmental container where attitudes
are caught, not taught. Yet this also points
to a limitation of these kinds of practices.
To allow untrained groups to engage in a
free-ranging creative exploration, while at
the same time arriving at shared under-
standing and powerful results, requires
a certain level of skill on the part of
the facilitator.
The practice of actively taking all sides,
recording participants’ contributions, and
holding space open for creative possibility,
might best be described as “simple, but
not easy.” For those used to more directive
approaches, some unlearning may need to
take place. One of the greatest challenges
can be to refrain from efforts to manage
convergence, which is key for allowing a
different kind of convergence to emerge.
Instead of focusing on the majority per-
spectives, dot-voting, and so on, we are
continually listening for the voices at the
edge, complexity theory’s weak signals that
can help us shift together into new ways
of understanding the situation at hand
(Schoemaker & Day, 2009).
Wrapping Up and Going Further
In this paper, I have pointed to the value
of co-creative dialogue in situations where,
due to the nature of the subject matter,
we often default to more linear, control-
oriented approaches. Two case examples
have illustrated the value of welcoming
initial solutions, while also showing how
an emergence-based process can interface
productively with established authority
structures. We have seen how an active
facilitation role creates an environment
where both creative thinking and critical
thinking can co-exist simultaneously, and
how organizing information retroactively
can allow us to engage in a more open-
ended process moving forward.
What has not been explored here, and
thus remains implicit, is the developmental
potential of having people work on practi-
cal and challenging issues in a co-creative
and dialogical manner. While we have
anecdotal evidence of this (Atlee, 2012,
pp.108-109; Rough, 2002b), more research
is needed on how using this approach with
task-oriented groups creates conditions
where participants can shift from what
Shepard called “primary mentality,” or “me
vs. we,” to the perspective of “secondary
mentality,” or “me AND we” (Shepard,
1965). Harrison (1995, 1987) has another,
more direct yet controversial way to talk
about this kind of shift; “releasing the
power of love in organizations.”
This brings us full circle to the math
department mentioned at the beginning
of this paper. In line with the mission of
the larger organization, this department’s
focus was not limited to helping teach-
ers teach mathematics in a constructivist
way; it also sought to tap the potential for
fostering socio-emotional development that
is inherent in a collaborative, discovery-
oriented math classroom.
As a species, we are only just begin-
ning to tap into the power of dialogue
(Eisen, 1995; Kahane, 2012; Seikkula &
Trimble, 2005). In parting, I want to leave
my readers with these questions: What if
our pressing practical challenges, including
ones where we find ourselves polarized due
to a divergence of multiple and often clash-
ing perspectives, could became opportuni-
ties for greater creativity and interpersonal
growth? And, what if we already have
much of what we need, to help this come
about?
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Rosa Zubizarreta works as a com-
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53Co-Creative Dialogue for Meeting Practical Challenges: New Approaches