Chitra Anand articulates a tremendous opportunity for organizations to help counter abuse of power in the workplace. The benefit of forcing dialogue will go much beyond countering abuse; it will also improve performance, innovation and creativity.
Forcing dialogue is very much in line with the work that the Faas Foundation is doing with the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence and Mental Health America on helping organizations create psychologically healthy, safe, fair and productive climates and cultures, where every point of human interaction is positive and constructive.
We are finding, in most environments the dialogue between managers and subordinates is limited to the annual or semi annual much dreaded performance review and when things go south. We are also finding that people generally are just not comfortable in being able to Discuss, Disagree, Debate and yes, even Disobey - what we are labeling the 4 D’s of emotional intelligence.
What we are advocating is first creating the conditions for dialogue to become a comfortable norm. The three conditions are:
. Trust
. A sense of Purpose
. A sense of efficacy
Both Google and Twitter, recognize how hostile and abusive online communications have become and are exploring initiatives to have healthier online conversations. While this should be embraced, unless the conditions for dialogue and the 4 D’s of Emotional Intelligence are the norm in organizations, whatever Google and Twitter develop, will not change the unhealthy discourse.
#FORCETHEDIALOGUE has the potential of being a huge movement.
Photo credit: AF.mil