“We need a place where there is no authority, no hierarchy, where there is no special purpose - sort of an empty place, where we can let anything be talked about.”

Forming high-performing management teams is one of the most demanding tasks of top management. Concentrating the energy of assertive personalities at the top and bringing about a productive interplay is a challenge. The trend of highlighting short-term results and managing organisations solely on the basis of figures can be seen as a response to what is clearly a more challenging environment. However, the lack of stability, transparency and reliability, decision-making on the basis of long-term contradictions within the system and safeguarding a company’s sustainability all demand different spheres, different ‘spaces’, in which management teams can meet to reflect and make decisions.

Top teams know it is necessary to differentiate between two basic processes; is it a question of performance or developing something new? The nature of achievement is predictable repetition and the nature of development is exploration and change. (Christoph E. Mandl)

Collective communication culture enables a management team to better recognise its perspectives through dialogue and to depart from rigid thought patterns. Open dialogue is an "empty room" in which we learn to think creatively and collectively, to consciously communicate with each other and to generate fresh knowledge. Through dialogue a laboratory for change and development processes arises. This room or space is also described as a container. It is the setting for dialogue and discussion. Sustainable cooperation succeeds by establishing a container that allows joint thought, learning and negotiation processes with the aim of then implementing results.