Great conversations power great teams

The consequences of poor dialogue in leadership teams are only too well known – a lack of challenge and open debate leading to poor, sometimes catastrophic, business decisions; reputation threatening issues not being discussed; meetings being viewed as necessary rituals rather than as opportunities to gain new insights. Yet despite this, very few leadership teams actively look at the quality of the conversations they have.

We have developed a unique tool to help teams do just that - the Team Dialogue Indicator.

Team Dialogue Indicator™

The Team Dialogue Indicator™ (TDI) is a unique diagnostic tool that allows teams to reflect on their conversational habits and patterns as a first step to identifying improvements.

Developed in conjunction with faculty from Ashridge Business School and based on established theories of dialogue, the instrument assesses a team’s conversational patterns under six headings:

3 core dimensions

Voicing

How comfortable are team members to express opinions and challenge each other?

Inquiry

How keen are they to understand the views of others.

Productivity

How useful and productive are conversations?

3 influencing dimensions

Power

What is the role of power and hierarchy in typical conversations.

Structure

How tight and focused are typical conversations. How much scope is there for flexibility?

Attentiveness

How attentive and present are people in conversations?

How it works

Using the diagnostic is a simple 3-step process:

Team members anonymously complete an short online questionnaire;

The findings are analysed and summarised in a report; and

The team attend a debrief session led by an accredited facilitator to have a conversation about the implications of the findings and agree an action plan.

No items found.

"It is amazing how filling out a 15 minute online questionnaire can produce so much powerful and useful dialogue and conversation, really impressed!"

CEO of Crown Paints (UK)

"An incredibly powerful intervention – and a painful one! The first time we have properly reflected on what actually happens in our meetings"

Chief of Police (Surrey, UK)

"The data showed us underlying issues in the team around trust and hidden agendas that we were able to discuss openly for the first time"

CEO of ENEC, Abu Dhabi

Interested in becoming accredited?

If you work with teams and are interested in joining our international team of accredited practitioners then please get in touch.

Find out more