Dialogue Conferences

European: The ‘Learning Regions' Programme

In Europe, Dialogue Conferences had their origin in early efforts at implementing democratic theory with the aim of producing workplace democracy in organizations. In Norway, they were influenced by ideas drawn from the British Sociotechnical School, founded on principles originally developed in the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in the 1950s, and had the character of attempts to put theory into practice. These early attempts were unsuccessful. As Bjørn Gustavsen ironically noted, there seemed to be a lack of self-liberating interest among Norwegian workers, which led to the realization that working people seem to react against theories of democratization that are imposed on them. They seem to implicitly identify democracy as the right to create the theory which is to prevail in their workplace themselves.

Thus, what emerged out of these early attempts at workplace democratization was the importance of local theory, local ways of implementing the aims expressed within an open framework of general theory—such as giving people more freedom and competence in their jobs, claiming shop floor rights, participation in determining workplace conditions and so on. Local features, which might seem small and unimportant to outside observers, can make all the difference to those working in these conditions. All these lead to a reappraisal of the role of theory as such, and particularly that of general theory.

Attention thus shifted from efforts at implementing democratic theory to the conditions and processes that generate different forms of organization and to the importance of Jürgen Habermas' concept of communicative action. This suggested that dialogue might be the answer. But how might all participants have an equal right to speak? How might the emergence of interpersonal processes different from those taking place in the ordinary hierarchical organization of an industrial enterprise be occasioned? In other words, how might the scene be set? How might open discussion as such be possible?

Crucial, among many other criteria central to the design of Dialogue Conferences—in American, as we shall see, as well as in European contexts—is the requirement that people speak in relation to their own actual lived experiences and not in terms guided by what they take to be the meaning (their opinions) of a particular general concept for them in their workplace. And it is this—especially when it comes to the importance of local details—that strangely can put all participants on an equal footing.

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