Like Johnnie Moore I don’t generally set ground rules when I facilitate a meeting. For most meetings, it’s demeaning and it tends to enforce the authority of the facilitator to act as a judge rather than as a host for the conversation.
The odd time there are meetings in which the tension is explosive and if necessary I do this simple exercise with a group:
1. Invite each person to reflect on these two questions:
- How do you want to be spoken to by others in this meeting?
- How do you want others to listen to you in this meeting?
2. Break into groups to compare these relfections and bring one or two as operating principles back to the whole.
Yes, it’s the Golden Rule. What I want for myself, I should also want for others. It’s a useful exercise for focusing us on mindful conversation, while at the same time giving the group a quick thing to work on together, and not being prescriptive in our rules of behaviour. By definition, the ground rules are already owned.
(Incidentally, the most common answers to these questions are things like “don’t shout at me, don’t interrupt me, hear what I am saying, don’t blame me. Of course it is easier to want these things than to do these things, but the group can find more skillfulness if these principles are made explicit.)
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- Music flows through me; never true to say I play it. It plays me. #
- Awoke with the taste of saltwater on my lips. Yesterday's ocean was a long cool embrace in the fluid of our origin. #
- What makes the air so empty that raven calls echo for miles? How do I become like that? #
- Smell of sweetgrass on the air this morning. #
- A Stellers Jay calling 6 feet from your face makes an excellent alarm clock. GOOD MORNING! #
- What a lovely moon. I'm looking at it through the back of a northwest wind that sent swells pounding Bowen Bay this afternoon. Relaxed calm. #
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- May the most beautiful team win today. Go Spain! #
- Well played to both teams. My pick won but my heart goes out to my many Dutch friends. What a game. #
- Windy night gusty morning. Watching big cumulus clouds rapidly forming as the sea air pushes over the land. Real life time lapse. #
- Vancouver Whitecaps keeper Jay Nolly deals with a pitch invader on Wed. Hoolganism gets its tiny start in Vancouver: http://bit.ly/bqzGqj #
- Men who work with power are clinging to the poles, discussing how to safely reconnect my neighbor to the grid. If only politics was so noble #
- Thinest new moon…Venus blazing…the ocean the colour of pale roses. Calm, still and clear. #
- Three circling bald eagles put a quick end to the dawn chorus this morning. #
- The ravens soaring on dusty thermals carry the dry heat of the day in their sharp croaking voices. #
- Ugh. New Spurs kits don't do it for me. What is that away collar? http://bit.ly/bceWJl #coys #
- High sea fog or low cloud. The newly minted Salish Sea is berobed in grey this morning. #
- Seems that every warm day is cool in the shade this summer. Some things can only be felt on the skin. #
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Slow week here with summer arrived and work at a standstill. Found some time to scrape the feedreader though:
- Peter Rukavina exposes the vapidity of TV
- Peter also tackles the problem of creating a cafe that plays your music to you.
- Johnnie Moore posts on the philosophical underpinnings of conversation.
- Viv McWaters playing at graphical representation of facilitation tips.
- The Tyee has brought on Andrew Nikiforuk to write about the tar sands.
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I was at the Vancouver Whitecaps game the other night and witnessed this pitch invasion at the ‘Caps end. This is some good footage of Vancouver keeper Jay Nolly taking on the invader and physically removing her from the pitch.
Heart stopping stuff.
🙂
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