E-MailWorking Together: Talking, Part 2
The first two modes of talking -- presenting and reacting to the idea (see "Working Together: Talking, Part 1," 10 January 2008) -- bring us to a third mode, which is the heart of collaboration: talking and listening at the same time. Discussion. In a discussion, you explore; you don't argue. It's not rhetoric. No one persuades anyone else: all help each other discover the topic's useful features and their potential. The primary task of discussion is not to refine or refute an idea, but to chase its implications wherever they go -- even way past the desirable, the presentable, or the possible. A manager may sometimes know early on that a particular path leads to a dead end, but he or she will be very careful about cutting off discussion even then. So what if there's a cul de sac at the end; the journey there may well have features worth looking into.
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