The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects: A Practical, Hands-On Guide (Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding) [Paperback]

Lisa Schirch (Author), David Campt (Author)

Book Description

Series: Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding | Publication Date: November 25, 2007

The word "dialogue" suffers from over-use, yet its practice is as transforming and as freshly hopeful as ever.
Authors Schirch and Campt demonstrate dialogue's life and possibilities in this clear and absorbing manual: "Dialogue allows people in conflict to listen to each other, affirm their common ground, and explore their differences in a safe environment."
The Little Book is a to-the-point handbook, covering:
--"Dialogue vs. Debate"
--"When to use dialogue"
--"Key dialogue facilitation skills"
--"Inviting people to a dialogue process"
--"Moving from dialogue to action"
--"Assessing the effectiveness of dialogue"
Schirch has worked throughout the Southern hemisphere in peacebuilding projects. Campt has focused on racial and class reconciliation in American cities. Many of the skills and the case studies they offer in this book come from their own wide experiences.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lisa Schirch is an associate professor of peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University's Conflict Transformation Program. A former Fulbright fellow, Schirch has 15 years of experience consulting with a network of strategic partner organizations involved in peacebuilding activities throughout the United States, Latin America, Africa, Asia, the South Pacific, and Europe.

Product Details

• Paperback: 92 pages
• Publisher: Good Books (November 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561485519
• ISBN-13: 978-1561485512
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Current Events > War & Peace
  • #12 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Law > General
  • #17 in Books > Law > Business > Arbitration, Negotiation & Mediation

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Little Book, February 28, 2008

By 

Lisa Marie Napoli (Bloomington, Indiana USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects: A Practical, Hands-On Guide (Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding) (Paperback)

This book amazed me in its simplicity and profound insights. As an instructor and practitioner in conflict resolution, I have read many books and journal articles on the topic of dialogue. This little book takes the concept of "dialogue" to a whole new level of clarity, compassion, and higher understanding. It reminds us that our future survival on planet earth - amidst our pressing global concerns - depends on our abilities to creatively address our problems through dialogue for positive social change. This is the same message that the Dalai Lama shares in his public talks: we need to promote the spirit of dialogue and cease the use of violence to resolve differences among people.

Lisa Schirch and David Campt approach their book in simple terms that most people can understand. All the while, there is a rich depth in their writing that reveals the fact that the authors are highly educated and experienced practitioners in the field of dialogue. Their use of examples, interspersed throughout the book, draw on their unique experiences yet distill universally applicable guidelines, challenges, and solutions for people everywhere.

As dialogues begin in my own community, I will use this book as a template to guide the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of the dialogues. The book gave me insights on how to articulate the distinctions of dialogue from other communication processes and it helped me to better understand important ideas for designing dialogue. While reading the book, I often heard my mind thinking: "ah-ha . . . that's interesting . . . I never though of it like that before."

I believe that this book is critical for anyone involved in holding dialogues for community transformation. The beauty and paradox of this book is that it is infused with a broad social and spiritual framework while being a "little book." I would be very happy to know that everyone around the world would use the book's insights as a way to promote deeper human values and facilitate a "new shift" in the 21st century.

Lisa-Marie Napoli, Ph.D.
Co-Founder, Past-Present-Future Foundation
Professor, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-have book for anyone who communicates!, February 26, 2008

By 

Elayne Chou (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects: A Practical, Hands-On Guide (Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding) (Paperback)

My expertise in facilitating difficult dialogue has been earned mainly through hard experience, but reading this book made me feel more equipped, and even excited, about the possibilities of facilitating more dialogue in a systematic way in my personal and professional lives. I am a counseling psychologist who has worked with individuals, couples, groups, and organizations in improving communication and resolving conflict. Within organizations and within families there are often many stakeholders with different perspectives. Everyone is working to take action or make changes, but often the important dialogue about different perspectives is absent - and can lead to larger conflicts, misunderstandings, and impaired productivity down the line. This methodology could help in so many different work settings and communities, not to mention within families.

The practical, step-by-step style of this book is its most significant strength. That the book was able to evoke a feeling in me of desire to approach, rather than avoid, difficult discussions, is truly inspiring. This book lives up to its title of being the "little" book - it's a quick 90-page read. I appreciated this given the bookshelves of half-read books in my office. It occurred to me upon finishing the book that the authors have done a great service by giving readers a digestible chunk of a large topic. Because facilitating dialogue is a skill, readers are best served initially by having the process simplified and explained with concrete examples.

Lest you think my comments imply that only laypersons and novices will find this book helpful, let me point out that the book places the methodology within the context of social change processes. The book's reach is ambitious and will allow people from all ends of the spectrum - those who have been trained in facilitation to those without any prior exposure to communications skills training - to find something of interest.

Counselors, psychologists, social workers, meeting facilitators, and corporate trainers will recognize some topics covered in the book, such as setting ground rules. The methodology presented will be familiar in many ways, but will also present new perspectives. The authors have impressive experience facilitating dialogue successfully with groups both large and small. They make their points using case examples throughout the book, which made the material come alive. Professionals who read this book will see the value in adding dialogue facilitation into their repertoire of skills.

One area where this book could be better concerns the pre-conditions the authors mention as necessary for effective dialogue - enough shared perception of language abilities, cultural differences in expressiveness (verbal and emotional), and openness to learning and changing. This book is designed to be little so I didn't expect it to go into detail on how to foster these pre-conditions or work with their absence, but in the future I would love to see more from these authors in another book on those topics!

Another warning is that it takes experience, training, and some talent to be a good facilitator of difficult dialogue - this book is a great start, but people who feel called to this line of work will want to get training and not go it alone initially. The book emphasizes the value of teams of facilitators working together to support the dialogue process and one another and I couldn't agree more. These authors have worked well together in presenting a wonderfully useful set of guidelines for an important and underutilized skill set. I recommend this book highly.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Toolbox for Difficult Conversations, January 11, 2008

By 

Manfred Brandt (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects: A Practical, Hands-On Guide (Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding) (Paperback)

We have all had the human experience of losing something of value to us, and then finding it again. Reading The Little Book of Dialogue feels like that, only, in this case the reader didn't know what an incredible thing it was that had been lost. What the authors reveal in this handbook, in simple and powerful ways, are the essentials of a human communication and interaction practice theory.

This slim volume distills the organizing principles for creating higher-level discussion in small or large groups. It is a kit of tools for a enhancing a variety of conversations and interactions, from improving day-to-day conversations, all the way up to and including how to organize, publicize and facilitate dialogues on a range of issues and shared concerns.

David Campt has probed across cultures to refine the best of human interaction principles and has created a simply yet powerful way of thinking about dialogue, around these principles, He has drawn from years of practice with all of the ideas in the book, honing, compressing, and buffing them into an elegantly-simply-yet-hugely-powerful-Gem of a book! All the paths are laid out, you can't get Lost!

The winter holidays and the new year are upon us--with all of the rich and varied ways of giving. This year, for the price of a pack of cigarettes, or a mocha latte espresso lite you can give a real gift--one that will help people have better conversations in their lives. Even if you never engage in a dialogue, this book will provide you with simple, fundamental ways you can flex your approach in conversations with associates, customers, and family, and increase the mutual experience.

Special audiences: I especially recommend this book to my colleagues in the following communities of practice:
Anyone working with the Recovering Community, Mental Health workers, Public Safety workers, Public Administrators and, anyone else seeking to promote a deeper shared meaning about issues affecting many, in both shared & different ways.
And, at a time when gas is $3+ and the powers that be have us by the barrels, these folks are only charging $4.95!

Let ten thousand dialogues bloom!