Today, the discipline of team learning is, I believe, poised for a breakthrough because we are gradually learning how to practice. This starts with creating distinct practice fields so that a team can begin to develop its joint skill in fostering a team IQ that exceeds individual IQs. It can also involve creating learning laboratories and micro-worlds, computer supported environments where team learning confronts the dynamics of complex business realities.

Dialogue sessions allow a team to come together to practice dialogue and develop the skills it demands.

The basic conditions for such a session include:

1. having all members of a team (those who need one another to act) together
2. explaining the ground rules of dialogue
3. enforcing the ground rules so that if anyone finds himself unable to suspend his assumptions, the team acknowledges that it is now discussing not dialoguing
4. making possible, indeed encouraging, team members to raise the most difficult, subtle, and conflictional issues essential to the teams work

Tip from Peter M. Senge, Author, The Fifth Discipline - The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization