Dialogue

I have been deep into writing my book on Instructional Coaching, and that has kept me away from sharing what has been happening in my intellectual life and the life of the many wonderful coaches with whom I've been working. However, as I work on a chapter on Partnership Communication, I can not help but write to tell you how impressed I am with William Isaac's book Dialogue. There are many useful books on dialogue, but, in my opinion, Isaac's is much more profound and sophisticated in its thinking than the others I have read (though David Bohm's tiny book On Dialogue is also an outstanding book of a different sort). Isaac's book is not an easy read since it is not superficial, but it is filled with strategies, wisdom, and it embodies the partnership philosophy that I see as being at the heart of Instructional Coaching.

Here, to give you a very tiny sample, are just two quotations I gathered while writing about listening as a part of Partnership Communication:

"One lens that can reduce the temptation to blame and increase respect is to listen to others from the vantage point that says, 'this too is in me.' Whatever the behavior we hear in another, whatever struggle we see in them, we choose to look for how these same dynamics operate in ourselves" (p. 124).

"Respect is not a passive act. To respect someone is to look for the springs that feed the pool of their experience" (p.110).