Customer Reviews

Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems

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Imagine a world in which most meetings are rich, stimulating, effective gatherings that we actually look forward to attending.... Sure, it sounds far-fetched! But that possibility is already here today, and that's what Dr. Jeff Conklin's book is about.

This book is NOT about how to "herd cats", nor is it about learning to "control people better". In fact, it's just the opposite... it's about encouraging each person's creativity through a process where each and every point of view, no matter how difficult or "contrarian", ends up adding value to the larger "map" of the conversation that is being created.

Based on my experience with Dialogue Mapping, I recommend this book highly as an exciting breakthrough for anyone wanting to develop highly-functioning work teams, group synergy, and collective intelligence. Since this process is specifically designed to help groups address "wicked problems", it is particularly relevant for those of us who are tackling the complex social issues that are at the heart of public participation and deliberative democracy projects.

While the principles described in the book can be applied with chart paper and markers, the value of this approach is greatly enhanced by the powerful and easy-to-use software that Dr. Conklin and his colleagues have developed. Compendium allows the facilitator to track, manage, organize, and display all of the various perspectives and considerations that emerge in a group during the Dialogue Mapping process. This high-powered program has been designed as open-source shareware, and is available freely through a link on Dr. Conklin's website to the Compendium Institute.

We need only to look at the wide array of technologies that are available in our world today to realize that, as a species, we are amazingly creative and capable. It's high time that we applied our capacities to enhancing our human interactions with one another! Dialogue Mapping is a highly effective way to help groups enter a state of "flow", analogous to a sports team entering the "zone" of outstanding performance. As such, it is a real cause for celebration.

At last Dr. Conklin has done it: Given those of us who have been using Dialogue Mapping in our consulting practices a definitive, well-written manual on how to develop and extend our expertise. The tool itself is not only indispensable: It reflects a way of thinking about problems that engenders shared inquiry.

Shared inquiry is all about the power of inclusion, and inclusion is a key component of corporate internal communication. Companies that practice inclusive problem solving consistently not only outperform other companies in the same industry, but tend to be the most enjoyable places to work!

Recent studies by Watson Wyatt and others point to the quality of internal communication as a leading indicator of corporate financial performance. In my experience, Dialogue Mapping is a technique that has helped focus my clients on identifying and eliminating the roadblocks to real business success.

If you are struggling with wicked problems and attempting to work through difficult obstacles with limited success, you need to learn Dialogue Mapping. Stop what you're doing right now and buy this book. It is absolutely indispensable.

I read this book recently and my facilitation and project management efforts have improved as a result.

Some of the key subjects/topic areas that jumped out of this book for me are:

-- Practicing the listening cycle, especially the sub-section of the book that discusses validating information.

-- Learning to ask the 7 questions and in particular using these questions as a lens to assess the health of a collaborative effort

-- Helping me better understand the meaning of shared understanding

Full disclosure, I read this book while it was still a manuscript in preparation. I liked how it was taking form then, and I am most pleased with how it has turned out. I have used the methods described in this book in classroom settings, both with teachers, and with students. In the student case, we used dialog mapping to layout a course in Java programming; students offering their ideas and dreams, realizing the outcome in a course outline. With teachers, the task was to facilitate teachers coming to grips with so-called "constructivist" methods in the classroom. Dialog mapping, it turns out, is about as "constructivist" as you can get. Jeff does a great job outlining these methods, complete with enough background theory, lightly stated. Readers of this book together with the free software that assists in the facilitation process ( found at http://www.compendiuminstitute.org ) will soon find that this process is valuable, both in group facilitation, and in sorting out personal issues as well.

This is a book that I wish that I had been able to read 20 years ago. In my work with groups I have always appreciated the art of facilitation. However, the process and the endpoints of group diaglogue have often been less than clear.

Jeff Conklin provides an excellent framework as well as some very accessible and useful tools in approaching the complex challenge of promoting effective dialogue within groups. He makes a persuasive case for Dialogue Mapping and then clearly outlines its use in a manner that is clear and compelling.

I would highly recommend this work to anyone who works with groups.

This whole thing of mapping dialog, on first impression seems too uncomplicated, too unsophisticated

BUT.. then when a really able musician plays his/her instrument ....
I does look very easy

There is a subtlety here, the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of people
I tnink this little book does a pretty good job of introducing the uninitiated into this subtlety

Good Work Mr Jeff Conklin

This is a great book in communication. I have seen dialogue mapping in action and been amazed at how well it works. I have also seen what happens to some meetings when this type of tool is not used.

Jeff Conklin's work is inspiring, thought-provoking, and practical. The book gets you to think about how we communicate and what gets in the way, then gives you powerful and immediately useful tools to bring out the best in our interactions. Whether you're a facilitator, team leader, manager or software developer, Jeff shows how to bridge our thinking and build shared understanding, and does so with delightfully accessible and easy-to-read prose.