Webinar with Milton Bennet, language: English
For mediators and people working in intercultural context
Managing Perception in Difficult Dialogues
Difficult dialogues include conflict mediation and various instances of intercultural/ethnic communication where there are consequential differences in principles and/or power. Interlocuters in those circumstances frequently attribute differences in perception to the bad character, low intelligence, or defective philosophy of the other party; therefore, facilitation of dialogue in these cases necessitates an active management of perceptual processes. This session demonstrates an effective strategy for doing that, drawing on the classic distinction from General Semantics of Description, Inference, Judgement and the derived training exercise in Intercultural Communication of Description, Interpretation, Evaluation (DIE). Participants will acquire techniques for unobtrusively introducing this perceptual management tool into normal facilitation.
In addition to his Ph.D. in Intercultural Communication, Milton J. Bennett has a two-year MA in psycholinguistics, where he was schooled in General Semantics and human perception theory. In his ensuing academic and consulting career, he has conducted numerous facilitator training programs, including nearly 20 years of guiding the facilitation of Intercultural Communication Workshops and recent work with the South African group, Conflict Dynamics. Back in the day, he was the co-creator of the DIE exercise.