Dialogue Interviews
 
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PURPOSE + OUTCOME

At-a-Glance
Dialogue interviews are intended to engage the interviewee in a reflective and generative conversation. This tool can be used to prepare for projects, workshops, or capacity building programs.

Dialogue interviews:
  • provide you with insights into questions and challenges that the interviewees face,
  • may help you to find partners for a project,
  • prepare participants for to an upcoming event,
  • begin to build a generative field for the initiative you want to co-create.

    Purpose
    To create a generative conversation that allows for reflection, thinking together and some sparks of collective creativity to happen.

    Outcomes
  • Data on the participants’ current challenges, questions, and expectations.
  • Increased awareness among participants about the upcoming event and how it might serve their needs and intentions.
  • An increased level of trust between facilitators and participants that helps to create a generative field of connections.
     
    LOGISTICS

    People & Place
    Dialogue interviews work best face-to-face. If not possible, use phone interviews.

    Time
  • - 30-60 minutes for a phone interview.
  • - 30-90 minutes for a face-to-face interview.
    Both figures are estimates and need to be adjusted to the specific context.

    Materials
  • Use interview guideline (questionnaire), but feel free to deviate when necessary.
  • Paper and pen to take notes.
  • Sometimes a tape recorder.
     
    PROCESS

    Step 1
    Preparation:
  • Define/revise questions to adjust to specific context and purpose. Schedule interviews.
  • If the interview will be conducted face-to-face find a quiet space. Get information about the interviewee and her or his organization.
  • If several interviewers will conduct the interview agree on roles (primary interviewer, note taking).

    Step 2
    Before you meet the interviewee allow for some quiet preparation or silence. For example, 15-30 minutes prior to a face-to-face interview begin to anticipate the conversation with an open mind and heart

    Step 3
    Begin the interview. Use the interview questionnaire on next page as a guide, but depart from it to allow the conversation to develop its direction.

    Sample questionnaire:
    [1] Describe the leadership journey that brought you here.
    [2] When have you faced significant new challenges, and what helped you to cope with them?
    [3] Describe your best team experience. How do they differ from your other team experiences?
    [4] What top three challenges do you currently face?
    [5] Who are your most important stakeholders?
    [6] On the basis of what outcomes will your performance be considered a success or a failure - and by when?
    [7] In order to be successful in your current leadership role, what do you need to let go of and what do you need to learn? What capabilities do you need to develop?
    [8] How will you develop your team? What do you need from your team, and what does your team need from you?
    [9] Nine to twelve months from now, what criteria will you use to assess whether you were successful?
    [10] Now reflect on our conversation and listen to yourself: what important question comes up for you now that you take out of this conversation and into your forward journey?

    Step 4
    Reflection on the Interview:
    Take some time immediately after the interview to review:
    [1] What struck me most? What surprised me?
    [2] What touched me?
    [3] Is there anything I need to follow-up on?

    After all interviews have been completed, review the interview data, and summarize results.

    Step 5
    Close feedback loop:
    After each interview (by the following morning) send a thank-you note to your interviewee.
    •  
    PRINCIPLES

    Create transparency and trust about the purpose and the process of the interview.

    Practice deep listening (figure).

    Suspend your “Voice of Judgment”    : look at the situation through the eyes of the interviewee, don’t judge.

    Access you ignorance: As the conversation unfolds, pay attention to and trust the questions that occur to you.

    Access your appreciative listening: Thoroughly appreciate and enjoy the story that you hear unfolding. Put yourself in your interviewee’s shoes.

    Access your generative listening: Try to focus on the best future possibility for your interviewee and the situation at hand.
    Go with the flow: Don’t interrupt. Ask questions spontaneously. Always feel free to deviate from your questionnaire if important questions occur to you.

    Leverage the power of presence and silence    : One of the most effective “interventions” as an interviewer is to be fully present with the interviewee—and not to interrupt a brief moment of silence.




     
    SOURCES

    C. Otto Scharmer, Theory U: Chapters 17, 21
    www.theoryu.com, www.presencing.com