ABSTRACT
In the course of my observation and facilitation of high-level strategy meetings in corporations, governments, and international agencies, one observation has become apparent, and that is that the processes of questioning, responding, and interacting often use less-complex levels of cognition than we might imagine. Although the position of the executives may be high level, the levels of questions and quality of the conversations I have found are variable at best. Many of these meetings consist of an exchange of summary fi ndings, reports, analytic data, rapid-fi re question-answer segments, and perhaps a brief brainstorming session to decide on a solution. Sometimes, there is debate about the analysis, but this inevitably concludes with recommendations for a future course of action. Rarely do I encounter meaningful critical dialogue.
