Chapter 4
Dialogue Leader Behaviors
Dialogue is the twenty-first century’s most important skill and without it I doubt humanity can survive the onslaught of problems that we will face in the coming century. Despite the paramount importance of dialogue it is the only important human skill that we don’t teach or train anywhere in the world. Although we train other basic human skills like breathing, eating, walking, running, and sleeping this training only appeared once it became apparent our evolving lifestyles were causing problems in our basic skills. As we learned more about stress, allergies, and venturing into previously inhospitable climates we began training breathing techniques. As we learned more about the dietary effects on health we began teaching people how to eat better. As sport and fitness became a pastime in our otherwise inactive lifestyles we began studying walking and running. And finally as our modern lifestyles overtook our ability to cope we began teaching breathing and meditation techniques.
The advent of the Internet and modern telephony has led to life beyond the digital tipping point and problems of dialogue gap, so it is now essential that we introduce teaching and training in dialogue. Since the start of time people assembled in circles to talk about their survival but since the start of the 1990s we find this happening less and less at home, at work, ...
