We Become What We Talk About: How Experimenting with Dialogue Can Change an Organization’s Culture

Abstract

To change the culture of an organization, it is important to get people talking about the behaviors that they experience and that they want to experience in the future. Organizational behavior is based on personal beliefs. These beliefs may be invisible to individuals and those around them. Storytelling can make beliefs visible and expose the behaviors that make an organization’s culture. People’s stories and conversations are microcosms of what is happening at an organization-wide level. Programs that encourage the exchange of views shift the way people think, feel, and act at work. We can change an organization one dialogue at a time.

This case illustrates how one organization, a large governmental bureaucracy, transformed itself by sharing stories and perspectives. Their stress was causing unhealthy reactions ranging from complacency to sabotage to burnout. As a public institution, they could not make financial and structural changes, but they could address the human element.

The leaders decided to run “Dialogue Experiments,” a series of simple and effective dialogues to shift people’s mind-set. Together, the organization found its own way forward. The staff revitalized their vision, found engagement, built collective leadership, and resolved the fundamental issues that were stifling the group.

This chapter explains how to set up Dialogue Experiments to get your own people talking, showing how these conversations can bring about positive change.

Jeffer London, John B. McGuire, and Filipa Santos work with the Center for Creative Leadership. CCL® is a top-ranked global provider of executive education that develops better leaders through its exclusive focus on leadership education and research. CCL helps organizations worldwide, in both private and nonprofit sectors, build their leadership capacity and make a true, sustainable difference.