What sorts of attitudes encourage good dialogue? To improve our ability to dialogue, we must first have good attitudes, then good interpersonal skills.

The first good attitude is to stay in between aggression and avoidance. Do not seek to win or beat up on the other person. And do not avoid conflict so much that you end up withdrawing.

I have written in other articles about the human fight/flight syndrome. When we feel endangered we tend to snap into fighting or fleeing. This can happen almost automatically. It takes much self-awareness to stay in between these two reactions and keep up a dialogue. I have written elsewhere about how to build self-awareness, and this is a huge topic in my Web-conferencing Virtual-Workshop,Leadership Communication™.

It helps to hold on to the attitude of seeking a win/win solution. If the other person perceives that you have that intention, he/she will tend to move to meet you in a mutually satisfying solution. Dialogue is the means with which you discover the solutions. Good attitudes are what make dialogue possible.

To be good at dialogue, avoid the attitudes of a debater. You do not seek to attack the other person by finding all the flaws in their position. A debater “wins” only because a judge is present to declare him/her the winner. The loser probably is in no mood to cooperate on any solution. In the business world, this usually leads to a suboptimal outcome.

It is better to dialogue and discover a win/win solution. Then the other person is more likely to cooperate on implementing the solution.

To be good at dialogue, avoid the attitudes of a tennis player too. Your job is not to hit the ball so hard the opponent cannot get to it. You are not trying to hit the ball into an unexpected place by outsmarting the other person and showing him up.

Competitive attitudes do not work well for dialogue. You have to learn new attitudes that support collaboration. Dialogue is a work of collaboration.

I invite you to improve your attitudes and skills in dialoguing through my Executive Coaching or Web-conferencing Virtual-Workshop, Leadership Communication™. For more information, you may contact me, Bill Murray, at the above link, “Contact Us,” or at 919-419-9460.