Dialogue Nights, #34: The Art of Constructive Dialogue

For the second Dialogue Nights of 2025, the Ikeda Center invited Eliza O’Neil of the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) to introduce her organization’s unique approach to the art and practice of dialogue. Over the course of the evening, participants encountered a range of ideas, principles, and techniques that both resonated with and provided fresh perspectives on the Center’s own dialogical approach to achieving mutual understanding and creative coexistence, two of the most cherished ideals of our founder, Daisaku Ikeda. 

Welcoming the more than 50 Boston-area university students and young professionals in attendance, the Center’s Preandra Noel said, “Daisaku Ikeda believed wholeheartedly in dialogue’s potential for peace, so, I have no doubt that he would have been so happy to see us all gathered here tonight!” Before turning the stage over to Eliza, Preandra shared that the Center’s approach to peacebuilding dialogue is distilled in the Center’s four Dialogue Commitments and nine Ground Rules for Genuine Dialogue. With these “we can be united in how to courageously and respectfully engage” in this space tonight, said Preandra. The commitments, she said, are: (1) Avoid pre-judging and categorizing people, (2) Strive to bring out the best in oneself and others, (3) Listen to and learn from each other, and (4) Remember that change begins with us. The ground rules include such wise advice as: We will strive to courageously share our thoughts and stories with the belief that what we have to say matters, We will not devalue or “put down” anyone’s experience or lack or experience, and We will give each other the benefit of the doubt and trust that we are all doing the best we can.

What Is Constructive Dialogue?

To open, Eliza said that she lives just down the street from the Ikeda Center, so “it’s amazing to be in my community getting to know you all and doing this work together here.” By way of introduction she explained that CDI is “a national nonprofit that builds educational tools to equip people with the skills to communicate and collaborate across differences.” Speaking of her own experience, she said that “I’ve spent my career focused on bringing dialogue skills and mindsets to communities all over the world, including South Asia, the Middle East, the UK and then all across the US.” She also noted that the “lines of difference” she has helped to bridge are diverse. In the United States these tend to be “geographic, racial, socioeconomic, and political.” In other words, “all the things that tend to divide us.” Over the years she has found that “there are a few key skills you can apply to any of those conflicts or divisions.” These findings form the basis for tonight’s workshop. Over the course of the evening, said Eliza, “Hopefully some seeds will be planted,” some “things to think about moving forward in how you interact and have conversations with people, whether they’re people who are similar to you or different from you.”

Before getting into the dialogue activities, Eliza shared CDI’s five dialogue principles, which nicely complement the Center’s commitments and ground rules: (1) Let go of winning (dialogue isn’t a zero-sum activity); (2) Get curious (there is so much hidden beneath what we say when we’re in conflict); (3) Share stories (research tells us that stories move people emotionally in ways that facts and figures don’t); (4) Navigate conflict with purpose (resist fight/flight instincts by pausing, taking breaks, and refocusing on the goal: mutual understanding); and (5) Find what’s shared (Look for commonalities—big or small—to hold conversations together through conflict). Of course, said Eliza, “easier said than done, right?” To start practicing these principles and to get a baseline read on the room, Eliza asked everyone to pair up to discuss the following prompt: “When it comes to engaging in dialogue, in conversations with people who maybe you disagree with or you’re in conflict with, what do you most hope for and what makes you worried or what makes you feel hesitant about these types of conversations?” Following the paired dialogues, partners shared some of their responses with the whole group.

• The first attendee to speak said that “one of the things that we were discussing is that in order to have conversations like this that are really productive and respectful, it takes a lot of time.” Without sufficient time, one’s thoughts could come across as “rude or disrespectful.” Eliza agreed that it’s important to do the “ground work” and build trust. Even ice breakers can help with that.
• The next participant shared that they fear a “lack of resolution” when difficult topics are raised. They also raised the “fear of judgment,” saying “what if something that I share doesn’t land with the person and they end up judging me.” Eliza replied that these risks and these sorts of discomfort are a necessary part of the dialogue process.
• Another participant raised the interesting point that sometimes it’s easier to have difficult conversations with someone you don’t know well, as opposed to someone you do, like a family member or a coworker. In those cases, you might want to be careful not to share something like a political opinion that could affect the trajectory of that relationship.
• Another shared that her hope is always to find “a commonality.” And actually finding this “always pulls at my heartstrings.” Eliza replied that it’s a great mindset to enter a dialogue with the hopes this could happen, even with someone we disagree with.
• The last to share agreed with the hope and goal of finding common ground. One way to get there is to learn how the other person came to hold their particular perspective.

In the Constructive Dialogue approach the core principles are accompanied by five mindsets. Those engaging in dialogue should strive to be intellectually humble, curious, focused on the strengths of their partner (giving them the benefit of the doubt), self-aware (especially of one’s own biases), and calm. Event participants then engaged in several activities designed to practice the principle and mindsets. For tonight, said Eliza, she would like to focus on the strength-based mindset of considering the context when engaging with someone who does or says something you disagree with, which is something that’s “really hard to do,” even for people she works with at CDI, observed Eliza. Too often, she said, we tend to blame others’ actions on their character but attribute our own behaviors to situational factors. This common cognitive bias, she said, is called the fundamental attribution error. Instead we want to develop the mindset of giving the other person the benefit of the doubt. To practice this skill, participants shared thoughts with the whole group in response to three scenarios in which someone’s behavior on the surface might strike us as difficult or wrong. 

1. The first scenario, said Eliza, is this: A colleague walks in late to your meeting, out of breath with a hot coffee in hand, and then sits down and whispers something to the person sitting next to them. During share out the first response was that this person was simply rude, since the hot coffee suggests that that’s the reason they were late. Others noted that since they were out of breath, it does show that they rushed to get there. And the whisper could have been offering an apology for being late, or a request to get caught up on the meeting.
2. Scenario Two, said Eliza, is as follows: At a book club gathering, one member stays quiet the entire time. The only thing they say is a request for someone to send them notes from the next meeting, since they won’t be able to make it. The first share out response was the charitable observation that maybe that person is an introvert. Less charitably, said another, is that the person simply “checked out.” Other options were that the person might be in a feud with someone in the group, “some kind of awkward situation.” And, of course, they might have something else going on in their lives. Finally, they just might not like being there!
3. Scenario Three was the familiar situation where you are driving to work and someone cuts you off and then just zooms away. This is one, said one attendee, that we see in Boston all the time. Most agreed that it’s hard to be charitable in these circumstances, so what the real challenge is, is to remain calm and patient and not react. Others did mention that the person could be having an emergency, maybe something as simple as needing to go the bathroom.

Three Essential Dialoguing Skills

For the next phase of the evening said Eliza, we will focus on three core dialoguing skills: listening, asking questions, and inviting stories.

Close listening

For this activity, said Eliza, everyone will practice the type of active listening called “under the surface listening.” Here, she cited the work of Amanda Ripley, who argues that “beneath an argument, there’s often something entirely different that the argument is about. So an argument with your spouse about the dishes isn’t actually about the dishes, it’s about respect and recognition.” Another way to listen for deep understanding, said Eliza, is to listen for what CDI calls the six primary moral foundations: Care, Fairness, Liberty, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. An interesting twist here, said Eliza, is that “people with vastly differing views can still share the same moral foundation.” For example, a person committed to solving climate change may be motivated by sanctity and care but so may a person who is “pro-life.” To practice, participants watched a clip from the movie Black Panther and were asked to identify and share-out the moral foundations being expressed. In share out, participants identified values that ran the full spectrum: from duty to integrity, fairness to peace, loyalty to authority. 

Constructive questioning

Participants then practiced the art of asking constructive questions. On a slide, Eliza displayed a number of quotations that share the quality of being constructive. The examples included: What makes you say that? Why is that important to you? Why do you think that is? Say more about that. Can you say more about what you mean when you say ______ ? Have you always felt that way?This time, for practice, participants paired up to ask one another questions that would draw the other person out to share various dimensions of who they are. By way of example, Eliza said you could ask “fun and light-hearted” questions such as “are you a morning person or a night owl?” Or a more serious approach could be “Tell me about a time you were proud of yourself” or “Who is your role model?” After a few minutes, partners debriefed with each other to discuss what they noticed about the process. During share out they articulated some of the findings. The first was simply that “it’s hard to ask questions!” Others found the asking part easy, but the answering part hard. Another person found that the questions asked of them were “really deep” and triggered a lot of thinking. Another said that it’s “fun to ask someone questions about something that they really love to do.” Others noticed that when an answer is especially interesting it can be difficult for the one doing the questioning to remain in that mode without jumping in with their own complementary opinion. Finally, an attendee noted that when the other person’s experience is quite different than their own, their curiosity is piqued and it becomes easy to ask more questions.

Inviting stories

Inviting stories is another important dialogue skill that is closely related to the art of asking constructive questions, many of which, said Eliza, will elicit the stories that promote empathy. Too often, if someone just leads with and relies on facts, each person can back “into their kind of ideological corners.” A “story doesn’t need a full narrative—just personal, specific details,” she added. For practice, Eliza asked participants to combine the skills of constructive questioning and inviting stories by engaging with the six moral foundations and values. “Take a minute and think about which values resonate with you the most,” instructed Eliza. “Which values do you feel guide your decision-making, relationships, or belief systems?” Participants then paired up to ask each other questions that would elicit stories relating to the reasons each person has for holding their particular values. Don’t forget to keep digging with constructive questions, advised Eliza, “to get the understory of what people are sharing with you” and “how they came to believe this.” After a few minutes dialogue on this topic, instead of moderating shareback Eliza introduced the final activity.

Final Activities

For the final dialogue session, Eliza said they would be “putting all the pieces together.” Working in small groups of four, participants were invited to respond to one of three prompts, with each group applying all the principles and mindsets practiced during the workshop. The way it will work, said Eliza, is that each person will have a couple minutes to share about their choice of prompt, then group members will dialogue in a spontaneous, non-structured way. Eliza suggested they might want to “ask follow up questions, engage in open conversation, explore curiosities that were sparked, discuss what surprised you, or talk about anything else you want to learn about the members of your group based on what they shared.” The three prompts were:
 

1. Share about an issue you feel strongly about. Why do you think you care so much about it? Where did you learn it? Has anyone ever challenged you on it? How did it go?
2. Share about a time you overcame a challenging situation. What was it? How did you overcome it? What did you learn?
3. Share about a time you changed your mind or thinking about something. What happened that made you change your mind? What was that experience like for you? 

Following small group discussions on the prompts, Eliza introduced the evening’s final activity. First, though, she expressed “gratitude for this group and for this time with you all. It’s just so fun to be in this room and to see all of your conversations unfolding. I really appreciate all of you spending your time being here” — especially when “you could be anywhere else on a Friday night!” She then invited everyone to write responses to two prompts on index cards, which would be posted to a corkboard in the Center’s reception space. The first was to “just write down one thing you want to take from tonight,” and the second was to share “one question that you’re left with.” Here are some representative insights from the many thought-provoking contributions from the evening’s participants.

Takeaways

• That we can often not give others the benefit of the doubt, but not always be aware of it, which can cloud our perspectives in subtle ways.
• People’s present realities are often influenced by monumental events they’ve had to overcome, including me.
• Don’t be so judgmental! Judging someone in one millisecond is not cool.
• Individual experiences are so unique. At the same time, they are not unique at all. The thought or struggle you are having is likely something the person next to you resonates with fully.
• Try to find commonality even if the chasm seems too wide for understanding.
• Asking questions about someone’s top value elicited meaningful and vulnerable stories.
• To adopt a posture of humility in every conversation.

Questions

• What outcome should I seek when initiating a discussion with someone whose views are different from my own?
• How do I deal with fear of being judged for what I say so I can truly be myself when interacting with others?
• How can we train ourselves to be more reflective and inquisitive subconsciously?
• How to stay curious even when it’s someone you’ve known all your life and their perspective is hurtful?
• Can you always keep calm without ignoring or avoiding the other person?
• How can we foster this kind of open dialogue with people who are not inclined to abide by the same ground rules?
• What if we all worked harder to listen with intent and curiosity? How much better would conversations be? The world…?