|A question to ask always is whether or not your conversation design is breeding possibility or impossibility. Are we asking questions that look at what is possible, that look at overcoming our fears, or are we looking for things that emerge out of fears.
And example of the later is when clients ask me to design conversations around proposals or presentations. It seems to happen most commonly with government clients that they want to ask a variation of a question like “What do you notice is wrong with our proposal? What are we missing?”
Now it’s not a problem to explore new ideas, but questions like this invite people to come from a place of fear and anger and negativity. Instead, seek to design conversations around naming fears and exploring ways around them. “What ideas do we need to include to strengthen this proposal? How can we mesh those ideas with what we have already proposed?”
And of course none of that precludes people from calling out a completely wrong-headed approach. But the responsibility to tank something always comes with the caveat that a better proposal should be offered so that we can move forward. –
From our Art of Hosting gathering that concluded here on Bowen Island today comes a great line from my friend Christie Diamond:
“Conversation begins before it starts, continues after it ends and doesn’t always involve words.”
Brilliant, because once you understand THAT, you embark on the path of mastery.
Update: Dave Pollard has posted a nice harvest of his learning at our gathering.
I was working with a group yesterday that was making a number of small decisions as they worked their way through an agenda. The meeting was semi-formal and my role as facilitator was mostly to hold space and draw attention to process where appropriate.
I let the group talk, asked questions from time to time and noted the decisions that they had made. As I was observing this group working, I noticed something interesting about their process.
Frequent readers will know that I use the diamond of participation often as a map to organize and design meeting processes. One feature of the diamond is the three phases that groups go through, from divergent thinking through emergent thinking to convergent thinking. There are noticiable transitions between these three phases, with groups becoming quiet when the hit the groan zone, and the energy becoming lighter when concrete proposals and decisions begin to emerge.
Yesterday I was watching the pattern of the conversations in the group and I noticed that the language changed. Participants began and ended each journey through the groan zone using lots of “I” language and while they were in the middle, there were lots of “we” statements. A typical agenda item began with one partcipant introducing it with a personal statement or a question. The group listened and then replied with further I statements. These responses were a combination of personal questions and personal responses to ideas. Typically I heard things like “What I\m wondering about is…”, “I don’t like that idea very much…” “I can see your point…”
As the conversation unfolded however, there was a shift to “we” and group members began exploring ideas that were in the best interests of the group. People seemed less preoccupied with their own ideas and began working on the emerging ideas that were capturing energy. There was the occasional drift back to “I” language but for the most part I heard things like “We could do it like this…” “We don’t have the time or resources for that…” or “How else could we do that?”
Finally, you could tell the conversation was coming to a close when people started discussing the personal implications of the emergent decision. “Okay, so I will make that change to the timetable…” “I like this choice…” and so on.
Not just a flow from I -> WE -> I, but I also noticed that the conversation went from curious to concrete, and that this map took the form of quadrants, similar to the ones I have worked with before. This observation is in line with Otto Scharmer’s Theory U, and this diagram above shows the path the conversation took also shaped like a U, with the group going from inquiry which opened up options to concrete decisions and implementation plans.
The cool thing about this map of patterns is that it gave me enough for to be able to hold very lightly the conversational space that the group was in. I watched them go through this process something like 15 times over the course of the day and only a couple of times did they get stuck. When they did, it was simply a matter of consulting the map to see what to do. I intervened at least one in each of these four quadrants, something like this:
- Asking for more clarity in personal introduction of agenda ites, and alos inviting the person introducing the item what they are curious about.
- Helping the group see emergent ideas as they were taking shape and asking about the nature of the ideas rather than people’s personal preferences or thoughts.
- Inviting people to concretize what they were hearing, and to explore the implications of one option over another.
- Inviting personal responsibility and ensuring that implementation plans were in place for each decision.
Simple, but this is value of having maps at your finger tips to help find your way through the wilderness of emergent conversation\
Update: Dave Pollard has built on this thought and redrawn the map and I like his thinking. I will say though tha tthis version of the map stops at decision making, and my interest is in seeing the way the individal comes back into the fold as implementation takes over. We’ll be talking more about this I think at the Art of Hosting this month here on Bowen Island. At any rate, here’s Dave’s map:
Thanks Dave!
Back in April, I got to be a part of one of the best hosting experiences of my life when I joined Tuesday Ryan-Hart, Toke Moeller, Monica Nissen, Phil Cass and Tim Merry and a bunch of others in designing and hosting the 2008 Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Conference. The other day Erin Caricoffe, one of the staff members of the core team we worked with sent out this summary of where we are now:
By all shared accounts, the 2008 Food and Society Gathering for Good Food was a success, meeting planning Team goals of providing a relevant, inclusive, and highly participative event, and in the larger, movement-wide goals of defining where our work currently stands, and where it must go to collaboratively progress towards a healthy, green, fair, and affordable food system for all people.
To help weave our work into the national consciousness, we posed hard questions of self-definition, movement-wide strategic thinking, and personal responsibility within the conference framework. Our speakers supported these questions, challenging participants to be inspired towards change and confident in furthering it. Thoughtfully crafted Learning Journeys enabled many to step beyond their desk-bound days to re-examine and experience the shared core of our work. The technologies of Open Space, Good Food Village Square, and Good Food Cafes shifted us from prescribed idea sharing to permit a more personal stake in not mere talk, but work in the moment, of the moment, with long-term vision. We all took our turn asking attendees to participate more than they had before at such an event; thank you for your creative assistance in making this happen to such great effect.
The gathering intended to provide and ignite a crucible for systemic shift towards deeper, more meaningful connections that will sustain the good of our communities; towards co-creating the bigger picture of the Good Food Movement; and finally, towards experiential co-learning through conversations, visual harvesting, performance poetry, dedicated blogging, and sharing nourishing meals at the table. With defined intentions and shared commitments, our efforts to make it so were strengthened, and many goals met. We sincerely thank you for these efforts, your sharing of time and wisdom. And so shall our steps continue, following this collective lead. Together we will continue”
This gathering’s success is quite obviously an achievement earned through the hard work of many, of you: Planning Team members and our talented core of Art of Hosting facilitators, speakers who came from different locales and different backgrounds, authors who overturn the rocks that drive our knowledge, the maverick leaders who embraced ad hoc strategic planning in leading Good Food Village Square Sessions, the many persevering Learning Journey hosts who gave extra effort in order to connect with dozens of visitors, the hard-working Wild Horse Pass Sheraton crew, and last, but not at all least, the welcoming community of Native American generations who graciously hosted us at a most appropriate and inspired location, allowing authentic, challenging work to take place.
We, the Good Food Movement, are a living, breathing model of diversity, heart, and cooperative engagement for common good. Thank you for your efforts in helping us all realize this, and challenging us to maintain our necessary work!
This work was truly the next level of conference design for us, a completely participatory and challenging gathering and I’m so take with Erin’s description of what happened there.
I have never understood the idea that you can’t talk to terrorists. I don’t mean in the moment of vioence being committed. I mean the idea that negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan for example, are a non-starter for Canada.
We have committed 6 years to the “war on terror” and the exit strategy seems to be “kill all the bad guys before going home.” This is an impossible condition for victory. At some point people have to sit down and talk about how they are going to leave each other alone, no?
This interesting article in the NY Times is about Jonas Gahr Store, the Norwegian who brokered the Oslo Peace Accord in 1993. In it he talks about the need to talk to people as an alternative to say, unilateral declarations of war on hundreds of previously unconnected networks:
Norway’s message to the United States is blunt: the next administration, whether headed by Barack Obama or John McCain, should pronounce the war on terror over. Because it has tended to isolate the United States, polarize the world, inflate the enemy, conflate diverse movements and limit scope for dialogue, its time has passed.
“The way this has been framed, as an indefinite war that will last for decades, has impoverished our ability to understand the point of departure of the conflict and how we should deal with it,” Store said. “Engaging is not weakness, and by not talking the West has tended to give the upper hand to extremists on the other side.”
He continued: “Moderates lose ground if they cannot show tangible results. You don’t engage at any price, but the price can come down and we can achieve more.”
Norway has kept channels open to Hamas and to Syria. It has spoken with the Hamas leadership. It is convinced the West missed an opportunity by not talking in March 2007 to the elected Palestinian national unity government composed of Fatah and Hamas members. It argues that Taliban elements can be drawn out of terror into politics through talks.
In all of this, Norway has used the greater diplomatic latitude it enjoys as a non-member of the European Union. The E.U., like the United States, lists Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“We have enormous reason to be upset with Hamas because it spent every day after Oslo trying to destroy Oslo,” Store said. “But there is a strong realist tradition in Hamas oriented toward a political landscape. In general, it should be in our interest to get organizations out of military activity and into politics. The political working method has not been sufficiently tested.”
Interesting.