Our dialogue design is co-created in an organic and holistic way, focusing on the head, the heart and the soul, and based on a needs assessment of registered participants using modified versions of Harrison Owen’s Open Space Technology and David Bohm’s dialogue techniques.

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Each dialogue attracts 20-30 participants—mostly from the preexisting GCD community, and a few new participants. These are individuals from business, government, academia, the non-profit sector, multilateral agencies, and private practices. For four or so days, we are sure to (re-)familiarize ourselves with each other in a few ways:

 

• Share what we are currently doing in the fields of global communities, diversity, leadership and change;

• Discuss current and future trends in these and related fields, particularly as they relate to each respective Dialogue country location;

• Brainstorm ways to share and partner with each other more closely in future; and, of course,

• Develop closer professional and personal bonds.

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We usually convene in a cozy private house, inn or hotel and make a point of breaking bread—and sharing a few drinks—together several times a day, in order to build the trust and comfort required to allow us to share our deepest thoughts, ideas, and hopes for the present and the future.

 

To be clear, the annual Dialogue is not a conference, consortium, or professional development event with guest speakers and concurrent breakout sessions; nor is it a professional association or an exclusive club. Rather, we are a slow-growing community that deeply values the long-term relationships formed between participants. While we are seeking to understand and represent something of a global community, we keep a low public profile because expansion not our aim, but a natural result of sustainable inclusivity.