Abstract

Dialogue has been receiving considerable attention over the past ten or more years, especially with the advent of diversity strategies across different communities. However, very few people have caught on to its methodologies and the varying benefits to be derived from its use. Expert communicators have been using dialogue as an effective tool to foster safety without which conversations that appear controversial or unpopular can come to a grinding halt. This research paper examines various dialogue tools that experts use to avoid communication pitfalls that can easily derail a conversation from realizing its desired goals as they engage homogeneous and non-homogeneous communities around best practices. It identifies some major downsides to diversity, key features that distinguish a dialogue from a discussion, discusses the different components of a pictorial diagram of a dialogue process that has been developed by experts and examines steps facilitators may take to capitalize on the free flow of relevant information in spite of the many challenges that they are likely to encounter in the information exchange process.