Simple conversations to restore hope to the future

Editor's note: Margaret Wheatley has graciously allowed us to present the first chapter of her extraordinary new book (Turning to one another). Normally, a selection of this length would be split over two editions but in this case we make an exception because of the importance of the work and because we do not want any of our readers to miss the opportunity to read it in one issue.

I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again. Simple, honest, human conversation. Not mediation, negotiation, problem-solving, debate, or [ublic meetings. simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well.

What would it feel like to be listening to each other again about what disturbs and troubles us? About what gives us energy and hope? About our yearnings, our fears, our prayers, our children?

I wonder if you believe, as I do, that this world needs changing. This book is an invitation to notice what's going on, to clarify your thoughts and experience, and to begin speaking with those around you. What do you see? What are you experiencing in your life and the lives of those you care about? What do you wish were different?

Human conversation is the most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions for change -personal change, community and organizational change, community and organizational change, planetary change. If we can sit together and talk about what's important to us, we begin to come alive. We share what we see, what we feel, and we listen to what others see and feel.

For as long as we've been around as humans, as wandering bands of nomads or cave dwellers, we have sat together and shared experiences. We've painted images on rock walls, recounted dreams and visions, told stories of the day, and generally felt comforted to be in the world together. When the world became fearsome, we came together. When the world called us to explore its edges, we journeyed together. Whatever we did, we did it together.

We have never wanted to be alone. But today, we are alone. We are more fragmented and isolated from one another than ever before. Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes it as "a radical brokenness in all of existence." We move at frantic speed, spinning out into greater isolation. We seek consolation in everything except each other. The entire world seems hypnotized in the wrong direction -encouraging us to love things rather than people, to embrace everything new without noticing what's lost or wrong, to choose fear instead of peace. We promise ourselves everything except each other. We've forgotten the source of true contentment and well-being.

But we haven't really forgotten. As the world becomes more complex and fearful, we know we need each other to find our way through the darkness. The yearning for community is worldwide. What can we do to turn to one another?

The simplest way to begin finding each other again is to start talking about what we care about. If we could stop ignoring each other, stop engaging in fear-filled gossip, what might we discover?

Conversation, however, takes time. We need time to sit together, to listen, to worry, and dream together. As this age of turmoil tears us apart, we need to reclaim time to be together. Otherwise, we cannot stop the fragmentation.

And we need to be able to talk with those we have named "enemy." Fear of each other also keeps us apart. Most of us have lists of people we fear. We can't imagine talking with them, and if we did, we know it would only create more anger. We can't imagine what we would learn from them, or what might become possible if we spoke to those we most fear.

I hope we can reclaim conversation as our route back to each other, and as the path forward to a hopeful future. It only requires imagination and courage and faith. These are qualities possessed by everyone. Now is the time to exercise them to their fullest.

Why I Wrote This Book

I write a great deal. But this book is very different from anything I've written in the past several years. I'd like to tell a few aspects of my own story to explain why I felt compelled to write this particular book at this time.

For many years, I've been privileged to meet and work with people in many different communities, organizations, and nations. I have been invited into these different places because of my work on leadership and life in organizations. I've been trying to understand how life organizes, and to apply those learnings to how we structure and design human organizations. Nature organizes much more effectively than we humans do, and quite differently. For example, life works cooperatively, not competitively, in networks of relationships where each depends on the other. (Please see my earlier books for more details.)

I have found life to be the best teacher for the dilemmas of these times. How do we live and work in a world that is increasingly chaotic? How do we live and work as an interdependent community and planet? How do we evoke people's innate creativity and caring? What are the values we must preserve as everything changes around us? How can we be together in ways that affirm rather than destroy life?

Most of the people I meet are caring, intelligent, and well-intentioned. They hope that their work will be of benefit to others, that it makes a small difference. I have sat and thought about life-affirming leadership with 11-year-old Girl Scouts, and with the head of the United States Army, with tribal peoples and with corporate peoples, with religious ministers, and with government ministers.

Working in the world, I've grown increasingly distressed. Especially in the last few years, things clearly are not going right. Good people are finding it increasingly difficult to do what they know is best. Whether we're in a small village or a major global corporation, in any country and in any type of work, we are being asked to work faster, more competitively, more selfishly and to focus only on the short term. These values cannot lead to anything healthy and sustainable, and they are alarmingly destructive. Even though life is our best teacher, we're not learning her lessons. I believe we must learn quickly now how to work and live together in ways that bring us back to life.

I've explored this distress with tens of thousands of people and have discovered something obvious and extremely hopeful. We are all human. The unique expressions of culture and tradition that give us such interestingly different appearances are based on the same human desires for learning, freedom, meaning, and love. You and I are yearning for the same things- wherever we are, using whatever means we have available.

It is an increasingly dark time. It is difficult to do good and lasting work. It is seemingly impossible to create healthy change. But people still are basically good and caring. We may feel distressed, overwhelmed, numbed, and afraid. But beneath these feelings, we still desire learning, freedom, meaning, and love.

Because this is a time when we are bombarded with images of human badness, I have been intentionally exploring human goodness. I have learned a great deal from Paulo Freire's work with the very poor of Brazil and you will read some of those learnings in these pages. The stories and work of others who have taught me are here also -poets, spiritual teachers, everyday people living lives quite different from mine. From them I've learned that no matter how beaten down we are-by poverty, by oppressive leadership, by tragedy-the human spirit is nearly impossible to destroy. We humans keep wanting to learn, to improve things, and to care about each other.

What's truly hopeful is that we already have the means to evoke more goodness from one another. I have witnessed the astonishing power of good listening and the healing available when someone gives voice to their experience. I saw this first in South Africa after apartheid ended. A few of those stories are in these pages. And other stories from those living in very difficult conditions. We may have forgotten how to listen, or how to tell our own story, but these are the skills that will help us now.

I also have learned that when we begin listening to each other, and when we talk about things that matter to us, the world begins to change. A close friend and colleague of many years, Juanita Brown, has shared her experiences in community organizing and corporate strategy, and her belief in everyone's capacity to figure out how to make a difference. Juanita taught me that all change, even very large and powerful change, begins when a few people start talking with one another about something they care about. Simple conversations held at kitchen tables, or seated on the ground, or leaning against doorways are powerful means to start influencing and changing our world.

Beginning in 1998, another friend and colleague, Christina Baldwin, taught me that human beings have always sat in circles and councils to do their best thinking, and to develop strong and trusting relationships. I have now experienced many circles, in many different settings. Whether I'm with a group of friends or strangers, seated in a windowless corporate room or on logs in the African bush, I have learned that the very simple process of council takes us to a place of deep connection with each other. And, as we slow down the conversation to a pace that encourages thinking, we become wise and courageous actors in our world.

Each of these learnings and observations has led to this book. My feelings for this book are best described in Freire's voice, in words he used in his first book:

From these pages, I hope at least the following will endure: my trust in the people, and my faith in men and women, and in the creation ofa world in which it will be easier to love.

How to Use This Book

The intent of this book is to encourage and support you in beginning conversations about things that are important to you and those near you. It has no other purpose. The book has three sections. Part one contains short essays about things relevant to conversation. I describe the power of conversation to bring us together, how it revives our hope and commitment to work for the changes we want to see in our world. I also describe several conditions that help with good conversation, including simplicity, courage, listening, and diversity. This entire section is meant to encourage you to be the convener and host of conversations. I hope you feel supported to step forward into action, to call together a few friends and colleagues, and start talking about what you most care about.

Part two contains a few pages of quotes and images. This is the place for you to pause and reflect on what you've read. And to prepare for the work ahead, which is starting conversations. I hope this section inspires you and gives you energy, because the work is now yours to do.

Part three has 10 short "conversation starters." These brief essays provide content for your conversations. (You can, of course, just begin your conversations with the issues and dreams that concern you most.) Each of these conversation starters begins with a question. Each contains a story or two, some facts and quotes, and my own comments and interpretations about the topic. I've included some poems as well. You'll have to be the judge as to which, if any of these materials, are useful to you to start a conversation. You might want to just use the question, or one quote. I tried to keep the essays short so that they could be read aloud in a group, if that seems useful. My greatest hope is that you, as conversation host, will be provoked by these conversation starters, and then decide what works best for you and your colleagues.

Why did I choose these particular 10 questions or topics? These are not the only things we need to be talking about. I know there are other issues more relevant to your community or organization. I chose these 10 because, in my experience, they lead people into conversations about their deepest beliefs, fears, and hopes. They also help us understand our experience more fully. Because the questions draw out our individual experience and insight, they also reveal our fundamental human goodness. As we speak to each other from this place, we move closer and develop strong relationships. I hope you will try out these questions and see if they work in this way for you, your friends, and your associates.

I do know that even one of these conversation starters can easily lead you into dozens of other meaningful and important topics. Wherever conversation leads you, I trust you will experience how listening and talking to one another heals our divisions and makes us brave again. We rediscover one another and our great human capacities. Together, we become capable of creating a future where all people can experience the blessing of a well-lived human life.

• A small political incident sets off violence that doesn't end.
• A small computer malfunction disrupts lives for days or weeks.
• Economic problems in one country cause hardship in many countries.
• The undetected rage of a person or group suddenly threatens us or someone we love.
• A disease in one location spreads like wildfire into global contagion.
• The plagues we hoped to end-poverty, hunger, illiteracy, violence, disease-are growing worse.

These crises appear suddenly in a life or community.

They always feel surprising, out of control, and irrational. The world doesn't make sense anymore, and there are no safe places. As sociologist John Berger describes it:

There is no continuity between actions, there are no pauses, no paths, no pattern, no past and no future. There is only the clamor of the... fragmentary present. Everywhere there are surprises and sensations, yet nowhere is there any outcome. Nothing flows through; everything interrupts.

As I listen to many people, in many countries, I'm convinced we are disturbed by similar things. I've listened carefully to many comments, and included some of them here. Taken as a whole, they paint a picture of people everywhere troubled by these times, questioning what the future holds. Here are some of the comments and feelings I've heard expressed:

• Problems keep getting bigger; they're never solved. We solve one, and it only creates more.
• I never learn why something happened. Maybe nobody knows; maybe it's a conspiracy to keep us from knowing.
• There's more violence now, and it's affecting people I love.
• Who can I believe? Who will tell me what's really going on?
• Things are out of control and only getting worse.
• I have no time for my family anymore. I'm living a life I don't like.
• I worry about my children. What will the world be like for them?

Confronted with so much uncertainty and irrationality, how can we feel hopeful about the future? And this degree of uncertainty is affecting us personally. It's changing how we act and feel. I notice this in myself and others. We're more cynical, impatient, fearful, angry, defensive, anxious; more likely to hurt those we love.

Certainly, this is not what any of us wants. How can we become people we respect, people who are generous, loving, curious, open, energetic? How can we ensure that at the end of our lives, we'll feel that we have done meaningful work, created something that endured, helped other people, raised healthy children?

What can we do now to restore hope to the future?

What I Believe at This Time

I've found that I can only change how I act if I stay aware of my beliefs and assumptions. Thoughts always reveal themselves in behavior. As humans, we often contradict ourselves -we say one thing and do another. We state who we are, but then act contrary to that. We say we're open-minded, but then judge someone for their appearance. We say we're a team, but then gossip about a colleague. If we want to change our behavior, we need to notice our actions, and see if we can uncover the belief that led to that response. What caused me to behave that way and not some other way?

Over the years, I've noticed that many of us harbor negative beliefs about each other. Or we believe that there's nothing we can do to make a difference. Or that things are so crazy that we have to look out only for ourselves. With these beliefs, we cannot turn to one another. We won't engage together for the work that needs to be done.

I've been trying to stay aware of my own beliefs for many years. I'm describing some of them here for a few reasons. First, I want to be held accountable for these. I want my beliefs to be visible in my actions. Second, in stating them, you can learn a bit more about me. These are mine -I expect yours may be quite different. And finally, I hope that in expressing mine, you'll be interested in noticing and stating your own.

Here are some of my beliefs that motivate my actions these days.

People are the solution to the problems that confront us. Technology is not the solution, although it can help. We are the solution- we as generous, open-hearted people who want to use our creativity and caring on behalf of other human beings and all life.

Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals who can go it alone.

We humans want to be together. We only isolate ourselves when we're hurt by others, but alone is not our natural state. Today, we live in an unnatural state -separating ourselves rather than being together.

We become hopeful when somebody tells the truth. I don't know why this is, but I experience it often.

Truly connecting with another human being gives us joy. The circumstances that create this connection don't matter. Even those who work side by side in the worst natural disaster or crisis recall that experience as memorable. They are surprised to feel joy in the midst of tragedy, but they always do.

We have to slow down. Nothing will change for the better until we do. We need time to think, to learn, to get to know each other. We are losing these great human capacities in the speed-up of modern life, and it is killing us.

The cure for despair is not hope. It's discovering what we want to do about something we care about.

Simple Processes

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Many of us would like to simplify our lives, and life in general. Yet I notice how difficult it is to accept and believe in simple solutions and processes. Everything has become quite complicated. Things that were simple, like neighborly conversation, have become a technique, like intergenerational, cross-cultural dialogue.

Once a simple process becomes a technique, it can only grow more complex and difficult. It never becomes simpler. It becomes the specialized knowledge of a few experts, and everyone else becomes dependent on them. We forget that we ever knew how to do things like conversation, planning, or thinking. Instead, we become meek students of difficult methods.

In the presence of so many specialized techniques for doing simple things, we've become suspicious of anything that looks easy. And those of us who have technical expertise are especially suspicious. I've seen myself pull back from simple more than once because I realized I wouldn't be needed any longer. Those are useful moments that force me to clarify what's more important-my expert status or making sure the work gets done well. (I haven't always chosen the nobler path.)

There may be another reason why people in general hesitate to believe in simple solutions. If it's so simple, why haven't we thought of it earlier? Why have we invested so much time and money in learning a complicated method? Was all that learning and struggle a waste of time? It's always hard to acknowledge that we've wasted our time. We stay invested in what's complicated just because it took so much time to learn it.

But simplicity has a powerful ally- common sense. If we reflect on our experience, we notice that good solutions are always simple. Much simpler than we thought they'd be. Everyone has this experience, many times over.

Scientists are taught to seek the simpler solution. If there's a choice between two possibilities, they choose the simpler one. Simple solutions are called "elegant" in science. The beauty of the universe expresses itself in simplicity.

This being true, people often laugh when they finally realize there's a simple, commonsense solution. I think it's a laugh of relief, and of recognition-we remember all those other times we were surprised by simple. But I also think we need to give ourselves credit for our struggles with complexity. We can laugh in our realization only because we're on the other side of complexity.

The simplicity of human conversation-to advocate human conversation as the means to restore hope to the future is as simple as I can get. But I've seen that there is no more powerful way to initiate significant change than to convene a conversation. When a community of people discovers that they share a concern, change begins. There is no power equal to a community discovering what it cares about.

It's easy to observe this in our own lives, and also in recent history. Solidarity in Poland began with conversation-less than a dozen workers in a Gdansk shipyard speaking to each other about their despair, their need for change, their need for freedom. In less than a month, Solidarity grew to 9.5 million workers. There was no e-mail then, just people talking to each other about their own needs, and finding their needs shared by millions of fellow citizens. At the end of that month, all 9.5 million of them acted as one voice for change. They shut down the country.

Whenever I read about a new humanitarian relief effort-some of which have earned the Nobel Peace Prize -it is always a story of the power of conversation. Somewhere in the description of how it all began is the phrase: "Some friends and I started talking..."

It is always like this. Real change begins with the simple act of people talking about what they care about. Did they notice a dangerous street crossing near their child's school? Cancer increasing in a neighborhood? Landmines maiming their children? Deaths caused by drunk drivers? It only takes two or three friends to notice that they're concerned about the same thing-and then the world begins to change. Their first conversation spreads. Friends talk to friends. Because friends care about each other, they pay attention to what is being said. Then they talk to others, and it grows and grows.

A Canadian woman told me this story. She was returning to Vietnam to pick up her second child, adopted from the same orphanage as her first child. She had seen conditions there on her first visit two years earlier, and had vowed this time to take medical supplies. "They needed Tylenol, not T-- shirts or trinkets." She was expressing this to a friend one day, and the friend suggested that the most useful medical thing she might take would be an incubator. She was surprised by the suggestion (she'd been thinking bandages and pills), but she started making phone calls, looking for an incubator. Many calls and weeks later, she had been offered enough pediatric medical supplies to fill four, 40-foot shipping containers! And 12 incubators. From a casual conversation between two friends, she and many others self-- organized into a medical relief program that made a significant difference in the lives of Vietnamese children. And it all began when "some friends and I started talking."

Stories like this are plentiful. I can't think of anything that's given me more hope recently than to observe how simple conversations that originate deep in our caring give birth to powerful actions that change lives and restore hope to the future.

The Courage of Conversation

It's not easy to begin talking to one another again. We stay silent and apart for many reasons. Some of us never have been invited to share our ideas and opinions. From early school days and now as adults, we've been instructed to be quiet so others can tell us what to think. Others of us are accustomed to meetings to discuss ideas, but then these sessions degenerate into people shouting, or stomping out angrily, or taking over control of the agenda. These experiences have left us feeling hesitant to speak, and frightened of each other.

But good conversation is very different from those bad meetings. It is a much older and more reliable way for humans to think together. Before there were meetings, planning processes, or any other techniques, there was conversation-people sitting around interested in each other, talking together. When we think about beginning a conversation, we can take courage from the fact that this is a process we all know how to do. We are reawakening an ancient practice, a way of being together that all humans remember. A colleague in Denmark stated it perfectly: "It remembers me what it is to be human."

We can also take courage from the fact that many people are longing to be in conversation again. We are hungry for a chance to talk. People want to tell their story, and are willing to listen to yours. People want to talk about their concerns and struggles. Too many of us feel isolated, strange, or invisible. Conversation helps end that.

A colleague told me that at one professional conference, she gave participants enough time during her session to have real conversations. At the end, people stood up and cheered and applauded.

I find it takes just one person to have the courage to begin a conversation. It only takes one because everyone else is eager for the chance to talk. They're just waiting for someone else to begin it. They aren't quite as brave as you.

Where can we find the courage to start a good conversation? The answer is found in the word itself Courage comes from the old French word for heart (cuer). We develop courage for those things that speak to our heart. Our courage grows for things that affect us deeply, things that open our hearts. Once our heart is engaged, it is easy to be brave.

We only need enough courage to invite friends into a conversation. Large and successful change efforts start with conversations among friends, not with those in power. "Some friends and I started talking..." Change doesn't happen from a leader announcing the plan. Change begins from deep inside a system, when a few people notice something they will no longer tolerate, or respond to a dream of what's possible. We just have to find a few others who care about the same thing. Together we will figure out what our first step is, then the next, then the next. Gradually, we become large and powerful. We don't have to start with power, only with passion.

Even among friends, starting a conversation can take courage. But conversation also gives us courage. Thinking together, deciding what actions to take, more of us become bold. And we become wiser about where to use our courage. As we learn from each other's experiences and interpretations, we see the issue in richer detail. We understand more of the dynamics that have created it. With this clarity, we know what actions to take and where we might have the most influence. We also know when not to act, when right timing means doing nothing.

If conversation is the natural way that humans think together, what gets lost when we stop talking to each other? Freire, a Brazilian and world educator who used education to support poor people in transforming their lives, said that we "cannot be truly human apart from communication... to impede communication is to reduce people to the status of things."

When we humans don't talk to one another, we stop acting intelligently. We give up the capacity to think about what's going on. We don't act to change anything. We become passive and allow others to tell us what to do. We forfeit our freedom. We become objects, not people. When we don't talk to each other, we give up our humanity.

Freire had a deep faith in every person's ability to be a clear thinker, and a courageous actor. Not all of us feel that kind of faith in each other. But it is a necessary faith if we are to invite colleagues into conversation. We have to believe they have something to offer, and that they're interested in meaningful conversation. Otherwise, there's no sense talking to them. Sometimes, it takes faith to believe that others have as much concern and skill as we do. But in my experience, when the issue is important to others, they do not disappoint us. If you start a conversation, others will surprise you with their talent and generosity, with how their courage grows.

I think the greatest source of courage is to realize that if we don't act, nothing will change for the better. Reality doesn't change itself. It needs us to act. Near where I live, I watched a small group of mothers cautiously meet together to change one thing in their community. They wanted their children to be able to walk to school safely. They were shocked when the city council granted their request for a traffic light. Encouraged by this victory, they started another project, and then another. Each effort built on their success and was more ambitious than the last. After a few years of working to improve their neighborhood, they participated in securing a very large grant from the U.S. government for neighborhood development (tens of millions of dollars). Today, one of those first mothers has become an expert on city housing, won a seat on the city council, and just completed a term as chair of the council. When she tells her story, it begins like all the others: "Some friends and I started talking."

It takes courage to start a conversation. But if we don't start talking to one another, nothing will change. Conversation is the way we discover how to transform our world, together.

The Practice of Conversation

There are many different ways to host meaningful conversation. Although I've been hosting dialogues since 1993, my trust in and love for conversations is more recent, a direct outcome of what I've learned from the work of two colleagues and friends, Christina Baldwin and Juanita Brown. Each of them, with several colleagues, has pioneered different and extraordinary ways to host conversations that generate deep insights and actions, and a strong sense of community. At the end of this book, I give more detailed information about their work. They are the expert teachers for how to host conversations. I hope you will go directly to them.

I first fell in love with the practice of conversation when I experienced for myself the sense of unity, of communion, that is available in this process. Most of what we do in communities and organizations focuses us on our individual needs. We attend a conference or meeting for our own purposes, for "what I can get out of this." Conversation is different. Although we each benefit individually from good conversation, we also discover that we were never as separate as we thought. Good conversation connects us at a deeper level. As we share our different human experiences, we rediscover a sense of unity. We remember we are part of a greater whole. And as an added joy, we also discover our collective wisdom. We suddenly see how wise we can be together.

For conversation to take us into this deeper realm, I believe we have to practice several new behaviors. Here are the principles I've learned to emphasize before we begin a formal conversation process:

• We acknowledge one another as equals.
• We try to stay curious about each other.
• We recognize that we need each other's help to become better listeners.
• We slow down so we have time to think and reflect.
• We remember that conversation is the natural way humans think together.
• We expect it to be messy at times.

I'd like to describe each of these behaviors in more detail.

We acknowledge one another as equals. Conversation is an opportunity to meet together as peers, not as roles. What makes us equal is that we're human beings. A second thing that makes us equal is that we need each other. Whatever we know, it is not sufficient. We can't see enough of the whole. We can't figure it out alone. Somebody sees something that the rest of us might need.

We try to stay curious about each other. When we begin a conversation with this humility, it helps us be interested in who's there. Curiosity is a great help to good conversation. It's easier for us to tell our story, to share our dreams and fears, when we feel others are genuinely curious about us. Curiosity helps us discard our mask and let down our guard. It creates a spaciousness that is rare in other interactions. It takes time to create this space, but as we feel it growing, we speak more truthfully and the conversation moves into what's real.

When I'm in conversation, I try to maintain curiosity by reminding myself that everyone here has something to teach me. When they're saying things I disagree with, or have never thought about, or that I consider foolish or wrong, I silently remind myself that they have something to teach me. Somehow this little reminder helps me be more attentive and less judgmental. It helps me stay open to people, rather than shut them out.

We recognize that we need each other's help to become better listeners. I think that the greatest barrier to good conversation is that we've lost the capacity to listen. We're too busy, too certain, too stressed. We don't have time to listen. We just keep rushing past each other. This is true almost everywhere these days. One gift of conversation is that it helps us become good listeners again.

When I'm hosting a conversation, I ask everyone to listen as best they can, and to help each other listen better. We consciously agree on this as part of our purpose for being together. In making this agreement, we are acknowledging that it's hard work to learn how to listen, and that we're all struggling with it. If we talk about this at the start, it makes things easier. If someone hasn't been listening to us, or misinterpreted what we just said, we're less likely to blame that person. We can be a little gentler with the difficulties we experience as we try to become good listeners. And of course, we can't learn to be a good listener alone. We need each other if we're going to learn this skill.

We slow down so we have time to think and reflect. Listening is one of the skills required for good conversation. Slowing down is a second. Most of us work in places where we don't have time to sit together and think. We rush in and out of meetings where we make hurried, not thoughtful, decisions. Conversation creates the conditions for us to rediscover the joy of thinking together. There are different techniques for slowing down the conversation. One, the talking piece, has been adapted from Native American tribal practices. These techniques are well-described in the works cited at the end of this book.

We remember that conversation is the natural way humans think together. In conversation we are remembering perhaps as much as we are learning. Human beings know how to talk to each other-- we've been doing this ever since we developed language. We're not inventing conversation in the 21st century, we're reclaiming it from earlier human experience. Humberto Maturana, a wise Chilean biologist, believes that humans developed language as they moved into family groups and wanted to be more intimate. Language gives us the means to know each other better. That's why we invented it.

If you're hosting a conversation, you can rely on this history. We humans know how to do this. It does, however, take time to let go of our modern ways of being in meetings, to get past the behaviors that keep us apart. We've cultivated a lot of bad behaviors when we're together-speaking too fast, interrupting others, monopolizing the time, giving speeches or pronouncements. Many of us have been rewarded for these behaviors. We've become more powerful through their use. But none of these lead to wise thinking or healthy relationships. They only drive us away from each other.

We expect it to be messy at times. Because conversation is the natural way that humans think together, it is, like all life, messy. Life doesn't move in straight lines and neither does a good conversation. When a conversation begins, people always say things that don't connect. What's important at the start is that everyone's voice gets heard, that everyone feels invited into the conversation. Everyone will speak from their unique perspective. Thus, they won't say the same things, at all. It can feel as if you're watching a ping pong ball bouncing off a wall as the conversation veers from one topic to another. If you're hosting the conversation, you may feel responsible to draw connections between these diverse contributions (even when you don't see them).

It's important to let go of that impulse and just sit with the messiness. Each person's contribution adds a different element or spice to the whole. If we connect these too early, we lose the variety we need. If we look for superficial commonalities, we never discover the collective wisdom found only in the depths. We have to be willing to listen, curious about the diversity of experiences and ideas. We don't have to make sense of it right away.

This messy stage doesn't last forever, although it can feel like that. But if we suppress the messiness at the beginning, it will find us later on, and then it will be disruptive. Meaningful conversations depend on our willingness to forget about neat thoughts, clear categories, narrow roles. Messiness has its place. We need it anytime we want better thinking or richer relationships. The first stage is to try and listen well to whatever is being said. Eventually, we will be surprised by how much we share in common. The deeper order that unifies our experience will show itself, but only if we allow chaos early on.

The practice of conversation takes courage, faith, and time. We don't get it right the first time, and we don't have to. We settle into conversation, we don't just do it. As we risk talking to each other about something we care about, as we become curious about each other, as we slow things down, gradually we remember this timeless way of being together. Our rushed and thoughtless behaviors fade away, and we sit quietly in the gift of being together, just as we have always done.

Willing to be Disturbed

As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange ally- our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers we need to the problems of today. Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don't know. We have to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a time.

We weren't trained to admit we don't know. Most of us were taught to sound certain and confident, to state our opinion as if it were true. We haven't been rewarded for being confused. Or for asking more questions rather than giving quick answers. We've also spent many years listening to others mainly to determine whether we agree with them or not. We don't have time or interest to sit and listen to those who think differently But the world now is quite perplexing. We no longer live in those sweet, slow days when life felt predictable, when we actually knew what to do next. We live in a complex world, we often don't know what's going on, and we won't be able to understand its complexity unless we spend more time in not knowing.

It is very difficult to give up our certainties-our positions, our beliefs, our explanations. These help define us; they lie at the heart of our personal identity. Yet I believe we will succeed in changing this world only if we can think and work together in new ways. Curiosity is what we need. We don't have to let go of what we believe, but we do need to be curious about what someone else believes. We do need to acknowledge that their way of interpreting the world might be essential to our survival.

We live in a dense and tangled global system. Because we live in different parts of this complexity, and because no two people are physically identical, we each experience life differently. It's impossible for any two people to ever see things exactly the same. You can test this out for yourself Take any event that you've shared with others (a speech, a movie, a current event, a major problem) and ask your colleagues and friends to describe their interpretation of that event. I think you'll be amazed at how many different explanations you'll hear. Once you get a sense of the diversity, try asking even more colleagues. You'll end up with a rich tapestry of interpretations that are much more interesting than any single one. To be curious about how someone else interprets things, we have to be willing to admit that we're not capable of figuring things out alone. If our solutions don't work as well as we want them to, if our explanations of why something happened don't feel sufficient, it's time to begin asking others about what they see and think. When so many interpretations are available, I can't understand why we would be satisfied with superficial conversations where we pretend to agree with one another.

There are many ways to sit and listen for the differences. Lately, I've been listening for what surprises me. What did I just hear that startled me? This isn't easy-I'm accustomed to sitting there nodding my head to those saying things I agree with. But when I notice what surprises me, I'm able to see my own views more clearly, including my beliefs and assumptions.

Noticing what surprises and disturbs me has been a very useful way to see invisible beliefs. If what you say surprises me, I must have been assuming something else was true. If what you say disturbs me, I must believe something contrary to you. My shock at your position exposes my own position. When I hear myself saying, "How could anyone believe something like that?" a light comes on for me to see my own beliefs. These moments are great gifts. If I can see my beliefs and assumptions, I can decide whether I still value them.

I hope you'll begin a conversation, listening for what's new. Listen as best you can for what's different, for what surprises you. See if this practice helps you learn something new. Notice whether you develop a better relationship with the person you're talking with. If you try this with several people, you might find yourself laughing in delight as you realize how many unique ways there are to be human.

We have the opportunity many times a day, everyday, to be the one who listens to others, curious rather than certain. But the greatest benefit of all is that listening moves us closer. When we listen with less judgment, we always develop better relationships with each other. It's not differences that divide us. It's our judgments about each other that do. Curiosity and good listening bring us back together.

Sometimes we hesitate to listen for differences because we don't want to change. We're comfortable with our lives, and if we listened to anyone who raised questions, we'd have to get engaged in changing things. If we don't listen, things can stay as they are and we won't have to expend any energy. But most of us do see things in our life or in the world that we would like to be different. If that's true, we have to listen more, not less. And we have to be willing to move into the very uncomfortable place of uncertainty.

We can't be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion; cherished interpretations must dissolve to make way for the new. Of course it's scary to give up what we know, but the abyss is where newness lives. Great ideas and inventions miraculously appear in the space of not knowing. If we can move through the fear and enter the abyss, we are rewarded greatly. We rediscover we're creative.

As the world grows more strange and puzzling and difficult, I don't believe most of us want to keep struggling through it alone. I can't know what to do from my own narrow perspective. I know I need a better understanding of what's going on. I want to sit down with you and talk about all the frightening and hopeful things I observe, and listen to what frightens you and gives you hope. I need new ideas and solutions for the problems I care about. I know I need to talk to you to discover those. I need to learn to value your perspective, and I want you to value mine. I expect to be disturbed by what I hear from you. I know we don't have to agree with each other in order to think well together. There is no need for us to be joined at the head. We are joined by our human hearts.