Engagement, Changing the Dialogue

Bonnie CanalNews, Thought Leadership

I had a very interesting conversation the other day about one of the major tenants of resilience, engagement.  For a community to be resilient each member must be engaged, they have to feel as if they have a voice and that their voice matters. Today we are more connected than ever, we have instant access to all types of information.

But are we really engaged? What are our dialogues? Do we desire to be right?

I look at the news that comes screaming at me, I go to meetings where whoever yells the loudest gets heard, and I then scream myself via my online presences.

So I change my dialogue. I no longer participate in the yelling. When presented with differences, I search for commonalities. I listen carefully to what others say and try to find where we can agree, thus moving the conversation forward.  Now we are engaged, we may not agree on everything, but we are engaged.

Today, I am going to actively engage with one person in a real dialogue, you?

Bonnie Canal
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