Bohm Dialogue
A conversational discipline where participants suspend assumptions and inquire collectively into meaning.
"Debate wins. Discussion decides. Dialogue discovers."
What is Bohm Dialogue? A conversational discipline where participants suspend assumptions and inquire collectively into meaning. What strategic offsites claim to be and rarely are.
David Bohm's 'On Dialogue'; foundation of the MIT dialogue project.
What strategic offsites claim to be and rarely are.
Name when you're switching from decision-mode to dialogue-mode. The two cannot share airtime.
Use the model. Pick the move.
A conversational discipline where participants suspend assumptions and inquire collectively into meaning. You've just seen this: David Bohm's 'On Dialogue'; foundation of the MIT dialogue project. Which lever does the model recommend?
Pick a lever. There are no neutral ones — every incentive funds a behavior somewhere.
Pick a reaction to Bohm Dialogue
One tap. We'll point you at the most useful next surface based on how this hits.
The full taxonomy entry
Every concept in the Atlas uses the same structure — so Bohm Dialogue can be compared, recombined, and cited like an element on a periodic table.
- Business
- Leadership
- Government
- Healthcare
- Education
- Sales
- Marketing
- AI
- Negotiation
- Media
- Public Policy
- Relationships
- Where in our org would Bohm Dialogue most often show up unnoticed?
- Which metric, ritual, or contract clause quietly rewards Bohm Dialogue?
- If we removed every payoff for Bohm Dialogue, what behavior would replace it?
- Who benefits when Bohm Dialogue persists — and who pays the cost?
- People defend the status quo using the language of bohm dialogue.
- Decisions cluster around the easiest narrative rather than the strongest evidence.
- New data changes the slide deck but not the decision.
- Anyone naming the pattern is treated as the problem.
Every Atlas entry is a node in a knowledge graph. See the related rail below to follow the connections.
See Bohm Dialogue through 5 lenses
Each layer of the Incentives OS reframes this concept with its own thinkers, vocabulary, and diagnostic question.
- Layer 1Existing Framework
Which developmental stage and archetype is driving this?
- Layer 15AI & Alignment
What proxy reward is the AI optimizing — and what is it ignoring?
- Layer 18Temporal Models
What happens if this incentive compounds for ten years?
- Layer 19Human Needs & Meaning
Which basic human need is being met — or starved — by this design?
- Layer 21Mental Models & Mastery
Which model — or stack of models — are we missing here?
Do you actually know Bohm Dialogue?
Three quick questions. Result is saved into your review streak — come back when the term is due to lock it in.
Which best describes Bohm Dialogue?
Worked example, counter-example & concept map
On-demand AI analysis grounded in the Lab's research. Cached on your device after first run.
When you encounter Bohm Dialogue, your default mode network folds the experience into your ongoing story-of-self — which is why the same fact lands differently depending on who you think you are.
Self-referential thought, mind-wandering, narrative-of-self, mental time travel. Most of your waking thought is this network running scenarios about you, your status, your past, and your future.
See Default Mode in the Brain Atlas →Picked for you, from the Atlas
Ranked by shared learning paths, overlapping chips, and what you've saved.
A group decides on a course of action that nobody actually wants, because everyone assumes others prefer it.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We attribute our own actions to situations but others' actions to their character.
We favor people who are similar to us or who like us.
Sacrificing for others without expecting a personal reward.
Masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear grassroots.
Send the card, not just the link
A pre-rendered social card with the title, eyebrow, and URL. Copy the link, post it anywhere, or download the SVG for slides.
More definitions to follow
Every term in the Atlas connects to a dozen others. Pick any of these and see where it takes you.
Posterior = (likelihood × prior) / evidence.
Headlines optimized for clicks become editorial policy.
An information gap creates a pull toward closing it.
We value things more once they're ours.
Sales forecasts under-set to ensure attainment bonus.
We overestimate the intensity and duration of emotional reactions.
Treating real-world uncertainty like a game with clear, known rules.
Judging only results ignores ethics of process and rewards shortcuts that look like wins.
Money flows after ecosystems collapse, not to protect them in advance.
A negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior.
The relative valuation we place on rewards now vs. later — and how steeply we discount.
We favor people who are similar to us or who like us.