The Role of Dialogue in an Organizational Context

The Role of Dialogue in an Organizational Context

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The Role of Dialogue in an Organizational Context

Introduction

            Dialogue is a practice of engaging people to listen to different perspectives, work on difficult skills, promote cooperation, and build skills. Each organization has its own unique culture of addressing problems, relationship tension points, and implementing changes. With effective dialogues in an organization, the process of solving problems and implementing changes becomes easy, and successful. Most organization acknowledges the value of dialogues, but when they seek to enhance overall performance, they seldom view dialogues as a starting point of change. Ensuring effective dialogues are in place can be an effective first step toward improving overall organization performance (Stoll-Kleemann & Welp 2006). This paper intends to discuss the role of dialogue in an organizational context.

            In an organization, dialogues provide a forum of identifying improvement opportunities. This spurs quick action, paving way for immediate results, which build a momentum for the ongoing change. Dialogues enable managers to create a vision of change, increase employees awareness on their roles during the change process, and most important, they create a process of handling conflicts when they occur in the change process. Effective dialogues also boost employee trust, which is of paramount importance during the process of implementing various changes in the organization. Additionally, dialogues create a sense of transparency throughout the organization, and as a result, trust is enhanced among the employees. Keeping employees in the dark can lead to a feeling of low job security, resentments, or tension (Fielding 2005). Effective dialogues help to eradicate this feeling of uncertainty/cluelessness about the course of action in the organization, creating a more positive work environment.          

            Dialogue is an essential ingredient in the creation of health relationships between staff members and various levels of employees, both on social and professional level. Through dialogues, employees express their ideas freely, and they get solutions for some of the problems they encounter as they execute their roles. They also get to know more about their responsibilities, and their employer’s expectations. In addition, dialogue prevents employees from feeling isolated, creates a more collegial work environment, and builds teamwork. As the staff members interact with one another in a one-to-one discussions, they share their experiences, and consequently come up with more innovative solutions, which boost the organization’s productivity (Molen & Hoogland 2005).  

            Confusion and ambiguity in an organization can create feelings of low self-esteem and a tense atmosphere. However, through adoption of effective dialogues, where managers engage with the employees in a face-to-face communication, they can give employees the necessary information needed to get their jobs done. This is particularly necessary in cases where employees come from varying backgrounds. By engaging in such dialogues, managers also address some of the problems employees may be encountering as well as listen to their grievances (Fielding, 2005).

            In order to achieve the organizational goals, every stakeholder including customers, the community, own.............