We generally seem to prefer our more familiar model of sparring with ideas. Perhaps it is the nature of our extroverted culture that in any gathering we spend most of our time waiting to race out of the starting gate with our own thinking. She has not only defined the extrovert, but our extroverted culture as well. In such a competitively extroverted culture, real listening, that is listening to understand or listening as an ally, is indeed counter-cultural. For most of us, the pattern of dialogue requires new ways of thinking about and evaluating communication.
Dialogue seems to have no structure, no point, and no direction.
Even talking about it generates a mild sense of panic, particularly among those who haven't had a chance to settle into it. If we see the goal of communication as to decide something or do something, we are unable to discern the way in which dialogue, without a seeming focus on decision or action, somehow enables individuals to focus their personal energies almost unconsciously so that once the dialogue has ended people go forth and act in a remarkable level of concert, without the need for action plans or coordination or checking. Such patterns have been noted in the modes of communicating of Asian and Native American cultures. Dialogue should contribute to the development and deepening of a genuine interest in, curiosity about and concern for the thinking and observations of other people around the table. It is a collective process in which wisdom emerges not from our finding the appropriate path of thinking like the wise one at the head of the table, but where through a dialogue, we come to a deeper understanding than any one of us had to begin with.