The Democratic Dialogue Approach is the hallmark of our consultancy work. It is a convenient term to describe a set of values and techniques, mainly of Scandinavian origin. The approach emphasises the dialogue both as an expression of democratic values and as a generative mechanism, as a means to generate efficient discourse, strategic measures and solutions, transparency and consensus.

We focus on initiating learning processes, which strengthen participation and communication and thus lead to broadly based skill enhancement. This includes initiating and facilitating processes where the participants

Identify challenges, needs and problems and prioritise between them
Formulate common goals and plans of action
Constitute project groups and agree on the division of responsibilities
Define expected progress and set a time table for review meetings to monitor project activities during implementation
Evaluate results and performance in order to learn from experience.

The results we seek to obtain are particularly related to the development of such attitudes and skills as ability to:

create an atmosphere of trust and confidence
listen to the counterparts (active listening)
clarify problems, needs and challenges
communicate and explore options
prioritise between options and reach conclusions
implement conclusions
offer feed-back and evaluate personal- and organisational performance
combine these approaches with the assertion of the interests of the parties, firms or institutions involved.

We have developed fertile approaches for participatory development processes and for uniting different parties, groups and levels of administration and/or community into working towards common goals, thus enhancing both work environment, productivity and the institutional set up.
The main tools for the participatory processes are comprehensive training programs and a wide range of interventions, such as laboratories for communication and team building, “instruments” for enhancement of dialogue and negotiating skills, formats for conflict resolution, laboratories for assessment of leadership skills, procedures for recruitment and for sale and customer handling. The interventions can be applied in a flexible manner, and according to the specific needs and objectives of the working place or locality in question.
Group and individual communicative skills are basic target areas, thus keeping development of the human potential in the organisation or community in focus. The portfolio also includes supervision and training programs for local consultants and local trainers - i.e. training of trainers’ programmes.