Our proven approach has been developed and refined over decades of experience working with complex organizations around the world to help them create desired futures and solve their most critical problems by producing sustained and previously unimagined results.
Dialogos is a recognized leader and pioneer in organizational learning and change, collective leadership, and dialogue—a form of conversation that produces higher-quality thinking and superior outcomes.
Our approach incorporates a variety of leading approaches in integrative psychology, organizational learning, leadership development, and system dynamics. We have synthesized this knowledge into simple and understandable models of how individuals, teams, and entire organizations can achieve sustained, breakthrough results. We teach these models to clients as we partner with them in transformative change processes, so they will be empowered to lead in the future.
What sets us apart
Several key factors differentiate our services from typical management consulting and leadership development firms:
Focus on transforming the underlying system—not just symptoms
Organizations are perfectly designed to deliver the results they produce. The question leaders must ask is, “are these the results we want?” And if not, what must we shift to enable something very transformative to happen? What would it take to let that shift occur? Merely focusing on immediate symptoms and pain, while necessary, is not sufficient. Dialogos looks beyond the symptoms to help clients identify high leverage and achievable shifts that can create breakthrough and sustained change.
Co-creation of answers
We jointly develop answers with our clients. Rather than take the stance that we alone are the experts, we assume our clients hold key insights, as well as elements of the solution, and work closely with them to jointly craft approaches that would not have been developed otherwise.
The results of our work are often immediate, but true transformation—of systems and individuals—requires long-term commitment. We work with clients that understand the value of long-term relationships in producing a stable foundation for producing ongoing, sustainable results. For two decades, our client successes have proven the value of that commitment.
Capacity to create dialogue at all levels
We are equally comfortable and capable in the boardroom and the shop floor, and in linking all levels of an organization together. Our work has led us to engage in dialogues with union workers, first-level leaders, middle managers, and the most senior leaders of the organizations in which we work. This is a unique orientation, but one we believe is essential in enabling genuine transformation to take root.
A tested and scalable theory
Our work is informed by a proven body of theory, not merely a set of techniques or methods. For two decades we have been building, integrating, and evolving this model for large-scale whole system change. As we see it, there is “nothing so practical as a good theory” because it enables us and others to test what we are doing and learn how to improve it.
Willingness to address intractable issue
s
Most organizations have challenges that are uncomfortable to address: difficult leadership dynamics, failed strategies that people hold as successful, ethical challenges, maturation issues, cross-division or cross-functional conflicts. We help people go directly into areas they previously thought were unworkable, to generate new perspectives and achieve breakthroughs in results and capacity.
Focused attention from senior practitioners
Our biggest differentiator comes down to an extraordinary group of practitioners, each of whom brings substantial expertise informed by unique life experiences. From the intellectual and spiritual core of the civil rights movement to high levels of mountaineering and outdoor leadership; to deep and substantial work with a wide range of leaders in many corporate contexts; to conducting national-level dialogues in the transition in South Africa—our senior practitioners have real-world experience as leaders, educators and guides to individuals and teams.
We believe every problem in a living system requires a unique, non-mechanistic solution, and we have the team that can deliver it.