Perspectives on Dialogue: Making Talk Developmental for Individuals and Organizations

Appendix A

Future Search Conferences

Marvin Weisbord (1992) has popularized a process, which he calls the future search conference, for involving the whole organization in the development of strategy. A typical search conference brings together thirty to eighty people for sixteen hours across three days. Together they engage in a series of tasks that involve exploring the organization’s past, present, and preferred future. The process is basically a democratic one, reminiscent of town meetings. There are no lectures by experts nor vision statements by leadership. The purpose is to learn together about a preferred future and to make that future happen. Each part of the conference—past, present, and future—has four elements: (1) to build a database, ...