"Which raises a question for me, how do we help those participating in the
dialogue grasp these subtleties?"
In those cases where the dialogue situation is known beforehand to the
participants, the answer may have an easy beginning: establish the
groundrule in the exchange, something like "Let's do something a little
different when we meet to converse. Let's give ourselves at least ten
seconds of silence after every comment."
Read Chekhov's four major plays. His stage direction in the Cherry
Orchard includes "Pause," "Long Pause," and "Long,Long Pause". In this
unusual case, a master playwright has grasped silence as a means to
convey, among other things, the ennuie and incomprehensibility of an Age.
On the micro level, silence is a potent tool of reflection, as we all know
and all have experienced.
Best,
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>