Excavating our frames of mind: the key to dialogue and collaboration

Conversations between colleagues who hold divergent views of a case or practice situation often take the form of a win-lose debate in which contenders, arguing from within their respective frameworks, find they are unable to reach mutual understanding. The resulting impasse makes mutual understanding and collaboration difficult. Our typical way of resolving the impasse is to invoke the evidence for our own position, hoping that the facts somehow speak for themselves. Strangely, this may only exacerbate the impasse and worsen our view of our colleagues, whom we presume to be ignoring the facts. This article attempts to show that reflecting on the frame--not debating the facts--might be a more helpful way to approach such impasses and to reach mutual understanding.