8. Technologue: Technology-supported disciplined dialogue

This essay describes a methodology that enables dialogue, decision-making, and transformational leadership in complicated and contentious situations. It is founded on thirty years of research and development. A hallmark of the methodology is the formalization of its scientific foundations, its use of technology, and its constant empirical testing in the arena of practice. The essay presents guiding principles for conducting dialogue in complex situations and their implications in terms of requisite laws of Variety, Parsimony, Saliency, Meaning, the Evolution of Observations, and Autonomy in Distinction-Making. The embodiment of these six laws within a technology-supported disciplined approach to dialogue, called “technologue,” enables collaborative interaction amongst stakeholders, contributing to the emergence of a situation-specific, socially-constructed, consensual linguistic domain that enables participants to forge a social contract for designing their future.