Deliberative Processes as Egalitarian Space: Breaking Barriers to Communication Through the Common Task

by Lael Ewy

I had the opportunity recently to do some executive-level eavesdropping. But it was okay: I was invited to listen in on a conference call (having been asked to set it up) involving a team of which I was not a part. The team is the Certified Peer Specialist Programs and Practices group, which hashes out policy and best practices for peer support workers in the mental health field in Kansas. 

Members of the team come from a variety of different roles—from mental health service consumer liaisons to researchers to trainers to those who supervise peer support teams. My eavesdropping allowed me a certain analytical distance, and as I listened to people from very different perspectives come together to perform a common task, I heard something extraordinary.

People listened. 

So often, our roles dictate how we interact with others. When we work on tasks outside our normal assignments, our roles shift, power differentials fall away, and we become more willing to listen and more likely be listened to. And so a conference call about policy became also an open conversation about the impacts of policy on the various stakeholders involved. 

A study headed by Estela Mara Bensimon from 2004 shows how this can work on a large scale. The study, called the Diversity Scorecard, ostensibly set about to study barriers to minority success on a number of college and university campuses in Southern California. But there was a twist: instead of parachuting in and conducting the study themselves, the researchers called upon faculty, staff, and administrators to be actively involved in making the study happen. In the process, people at these campuses became directly aware of the problems minority students face in higher education, and an honest discussion about race and ethnicity ensued. 

This suggests a salve for hidebound organizational processes, lack of communication, and poor accounting of the perspectives of others: find a task that brings people out of their normal roles—a task force on emergency procedures, perhaps, or starting a company-wide recycling porgram. Or seek ways to be involved with common tasks within your field but outside your organization, such as creating a delegation to be part of a professional association. In this space you might just find yourself being heard and, above all, hearing what others genuinely think and feel.