Lately I've been combining my work on cities with a process of dialogue tables throughout my university in Arnhem, The Netherlands. We talk about professional culture and our passion for teaching. It was just a new way of doing things. Now, after a few months of dialogue sessions at lunchtime, it is not only the staff that is taking part, but also management, hr and even the board. What I see is that, slowly, the dialogue - introduced to think about the space we have as professionals - is becoming the space. The dialogue ís the change.
So, I thought, why not start a dialogue in your city? So often when I speak about urban creativity at conferences, the creativity seems to end once the conference is over. Mostly the conferences themselves aren't even creative. They are only about creativity. It's just cities talking to other cities. It's like looking at a powerpoint on how to swim.
I invited Peter Senge to my university a few years ago. He gave a presentation for 400 people at our city music hall and made everyone sit around tables and go into dialogue. You know what happened? Many people got angry. They just wanted to look at a managementguru to tell them what to do the next day when they got to the office.
But if you want change and you are not prepared to sit around a table with 3 or 4 others and look eachother in the face, you don't want change. If you want change, real change in your city, you let your people start dialogue tables. Just start with a few and then train the people at your table to become dialogue leaders. And so on.
I know there are cities where they did this. And it is the test. If you want real change, you better start doing things with the people, instead of for the people. 'You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all of the people all the time'. Now, if a small group can really get this thing going, who knows where it will end. Quote Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
