The Value of Dialogue
An Open Letter to 'Someone I can talk to'
“I'm looking for someone I can talk to.” That's how a prospective client once responded to my questions about the selection criteria in her RFP. She also explained what she wasn't looking for — e.g., the thickest stack of case studies, the most impressive resume, etc. She was looking for a partner in dialogue.
During my 20-year career in corporate communications, she hired me three times, and even during the most challenging moments in our work, I cherished our relationship because she found in me what I found in her: “Someone I can talk to.”
It's now been seven years since I started my post-corporate career — and seven months since I returned to Substack to launch Dialogue as a Service (DaaS) — and I still can't think of a better five-word summary of how I want subscribers to think of me: “Someone I can talk to.”
To some, this phrase may sound banal, but as my client years ago, some people do realize that this selection criterion points to a relational rarity, a quality that distinguishes dialogue from many of its corruptions.
Rather than use the phrase as a brand promise or aspirational claim, I use it as a testable hypothesis. It certainly won't be true in relation to every reader of this post, and it won't be true in the same way for every subscriber, but we can generally gauge dialogic compatibility in a 30-minute complimentary session, which you can schedule by emailing me at daas@substack.com.
The Value of DaaS
In the meantime, I'll provide a few bullet points on the value of DaaS. Through monthly and yearly DaaS memberships, subscribers enjoy the benefits of:
A post-corporate and post-ideological partner in dialogue drawing on more than 20 years of corporate experience and a lifelong study of the liminal space where matter meets metaphor.
Research-based iterative responses to subscribers’ problem statements.
Liberation from the corruptions of dialogue in established advisory arts (e.g., conflicts of interest, lack of transparency, power imbalances, etc.)