Typically in organisations, people converse around certain topics and experiences. And in day to day interactions they observe things that happen; what people say and what people actually end up doing. Dissonance and paradox emerge when what people say doesn’t align with what they do. Cliques forms, stories are shared, grapevines are energised and subcultures are formed. The result may be that informal communication networks have greater power than the formal communication networks.
The conversations that occur within the context of these subcultures often focus on personalities and conspiracies rather than topics such as change, innovation, streamlining processes and sharing know-how.
Conversations are the goo that keep groups together – good conversations make for powerful teamwork, innovation and a relaxed and enjoyable working experience. Bad conversations are the bedrock of conflict, anger, frustration, time wasting and division and do much to disrupt day-to-day interactions. But it is the difficult, dangerous conversation topics that hide the growing edges within the organisation.
The conversations that matter program helps to identify what the taboos are by getting people to think about them and see their day-to-day experience in different ways. The assessments ask questions – which are the basic tools of knowledge creation. Once having been exposed to a question, thinking is stimulated and knowledge is created
You don’t necessarily need to talk about the taboo topics in depth – just knowing what they are creates a sense of what is being avoided and why. The benefits of engaging conversations in this way include:
Benefits of engaging taboo topics include
- Making the grapevines and informal communication networks visible – when these networks are brought into the light by openly talking about the topics that keep them together, they lose their power to disrupt day-to-day organisational activity.
- Co-operation and teamwork are stimulated as everyone feels greater alignment to the big picture rather than to a subculture clique
- People who are excluded by the taboo conversations are brought into the conversation thus the disruptive power of the taboo to exclude people is mitigated
- All respondents who do the assessment immediately feel part of the bigger picture as they feel their opinions are important.
- The surveys eliminate time-wasting gossip and elevate the quality of interaction within working groups.
Read more about Elephants in the Office – taboo conversations
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