Building a Culture of Constructive Dialogue on Campus: Lessons from Leading Institutions

Join university leaders as they share proven strategies for strengthening higher education's dual commitment to free expression and communities of shared respect

What is Constructive Dialogue?

Learn more about the form of conversation that can bridge divides and lead to understanding.

Constructive Dialogue

Constructive Dialogue

Constructive dialogue is a form of conversation in which people who have different values, beliefs, and perspectives seek to build new ways to understand and interact with each other, even as they sustain commitments to their own principles and perspectives. The format is ideal for discussing important, complicated issues that can divide people.

Constructive dialogue prioritizes developing mutual understanding – the act of striving to better understand others’ views while feeling that others are striving to better understand yours. Constructive dialogue may lead people to enrich their own perspective or worldview, clarify their differences, discover common ground, or even create the possibility of future collaborative action that may have previously seemed impossible.

Constructive dialogue can be further defined by what it is not. Constructive dialogue is not about persuading others or winning an argument; and it is not about proving the other side wrong. While these may be reasonable goals for other forms of conversation, these are not the aims of constructive dialogue.

Constructive Dialogue 2

Five Principles of Constructive Dialogue

Approaching a conversation like a zero-sum battle, where one side wins and the other loses, sets up an adversarial dynamic that will typically lead others to put up their defenses. This dynamic minimizes the possibility of learning, and often damages relationships. By striving to “win,” you’re actually setting yourself up for failure. Instead, try entering conversations with curiosity and the goal to understand. You’ll find it can be contagious.

There is so much hidden beneath people's statements. Asking questions can play a powerful role in uncovering the context, motivations, and values that inform another person’s views. When you lead with questions that invite others to share something meaningful or that seek out the nuances of someone’s perspective, you’ll quickly discover new possibilities in conversations across differences.

Stories move people emotionally. They offer context to facts and figures. And they can allow you to convey your own views without telling someone else their view is wrong. Stories can be a powerful tool to replace frustrating disagreements with constructive ones. Instead of telling someone what you think, tell them a story about why an issue matters to you or how it affects you. And then invite them to do the same.

It’s normal for tensions to rise when discussing sensitive and controversial issues. We are biologically wired to activate a fight, flight, or freeze response to these heated moments. These responses often leave us feeling like we have less control over our actions and are more likely to say or do something we later regret. By identifying when your fight, flight, or freeze response is starting to take hold and pausing to regain control of the situation, you are much better positioned to move forward with intention.

The commonalities we find with each other – both big and small – can be the glue that holds a conversation together through conflict. Finding what’s shared is about purposefully seeking out those similarities and using them to move forward together, even in the middle of a disagreement.

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