Hosting Conversations about Questions that Matter
What to do When there is only a few people... or they are tired...
Dear Colleagues,
we have organised a few caffés, and there were cases, when only a few came. 15, for example.
That is still possible, for a Café like conversation, but for example there is this Friday and only 6-8 people is signed up.
My ideas:
idea no1.
to facilitate the meeting - in the so Called Möbius Modell, from the hosting welcome circle, through the 6 steps - to the ending agreements, and closure. There would be results and concrete frames.
It is for one school's mental Helath Course Students, the aim is to find out which themes would be necessary and fruitful for their professional life, to be discussed on our monthly Mental Club.
idea no2.
to create a david-bohm style dialogue, where people can share and link, connect to each other, and through the meaningful matters we would just co-create what we can do together, and what we really need. this is much less constructed, and I have less experience.
In an other situation the setting was the second night of a three day training session.
Participants were the members of the the regional coordiantors of the Hungarian Network Against Child-Poverty. People were really tired, it was late (20:00 or even later), we had an agreement with the group that we will have a World Caffé session, to have an experience on that.
We went into the process, but the reault was frustrating: people listened much, they became negative, and more frustrated. The most unusual was that in one corner - one of the five, each conversation was in depressed mood. It was like a damned corner.
I know it was late, and the participation was kind of - under pressure, quasy obligatory - so I shouldn't go into that agreement,or only with conditions but... how should have I changed the process?
My Idea: to create a so-called aquarium situation, where "active" people can sit inside, and share, and dialogue on the questions.
What would you do?
Best,
Szilárd
Replies to This Conversation
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Permalink Reply by Amy Lenzo on -
These are great questions, Szilard.
I don't have any experience in the two "facilitated" methods you suggested, but I hope others with more experience in this area will respond.
I was in a similar situation (re numbers) with the World Cafe Learning Program scheduled in Second Life today - there were only 6 people registered, and I could have either changed the program not to include a World Cafe, or re-scheduled the session. I chose the latter because the experience of a World Cafe was the ground of the workshop, but if it had been anything other than a learning program I may have made a different choice. One alternative for me would have been to keep everyone in one group and apply the World Cafe principles to what I know as "circle technology" to help connect people with the topic, each other, and "the whole" (i.e. collective wisdom of the group).
I've experienced something like what you're describing as an "aquarium" situation, where I was on the outside, and it was a little frustrating not to be as engaged as I would have liked to be. I think I would prefer some appreciative way to learn from the "negativity" in the group. But I really empathize with you; it must have been difficult to keep your equilibrium in a situation where many people were responding like that.
Thanks for bringing this question to the group, Szilard, I am curious to hear what others think.
Warm Wishes,
Amy
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Permalink Reply by juanita brown on
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HI Szilard...
You know, sometimes if it is late and your own personal energy is flagging, you can be sure that many others are too. Sometimes I find it helps just to "name it" and recognize that we are all tired so that the group can decide if it is right to go forward--- or to go forward, but in a very modified form--- or to pose only the most core question, which if they explored that--would at least give a sense of progress before calling it a day.
Regarding the small group size. If it is less than 9 (3 tables of 3 in that case) then often I will use some kind of "circle" approach instead of a Cafe as it is not well suited in terms of capacity for cross pollination the. It can be Bohmian-- but there are many other types of circle processes that I think are more effective for focused conversation where you want to inquire into a key question of interest to the participants.
Hope this can be of some some support as well.
Warmly,
Juanita
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Permalink Reply by Ria Baeck on
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And I was wondering if there was a real burning question in the middle... I don't think Café (or any of these social technologies) work well 'just to try it out'. The fuel is generated by people's passion for the issue at hand...
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Permalink Reply by Franis Engel on -
I'm experienced in David Bohm style Dialogue groups. What would you like to know about it?
We've had very successful experiences with less than ten people in a David Bohm-style dialogue situation. Any two people can have a Bohmian-style conversation, because the ability to Dialogue is an attitude about freedom, suspension of the reaction to need to come to a conclusion, acknowledgment of believability and curiosity.
If you wanted to do a David Bohm-style Dialogue, the main idea that you would explain to people is freedom to allow the dialog to go anywhere it wants to go. Generally, this means that the subject matter is improvised on the spot - people are not obligated to keep to the subject at hand.
To start, people toss out multiple questions or comments about any subject - perhaps if they have come together already expecting to talk about a particular subject this would be fine. Others comment on whatever subject that has been introduced that they would like to continue investigating - while doing so, the subject "takes off" and it becomes obvious that the conversation is in process. It is always handy to have someone who is able to generalize relationships of what subjects emerge. This helps to compensate for the "point to point" tendency of jumping from one idiosyncratic association to another that people tend to have.
The objective that World Cafe and Bohmian Dialog have in common is to "think together, to go places no member has ever been before by themselves or in the past." Of course, using a argument-based debate style is not particularly constructive in this context. There is no need to "convince" and everyone already has the status of being believed. The other useful skill is the ability to suspend coming to a conclusion or judging outcome.
Anyway - that's enough of an outline for you to use it on the fly next time you might run into that situation. Let me know if you'd like to hear more about Bohmian-style dialogue with specific questions...
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Permalink Reply by Roberta Faulhaber on -
Hi Franis,
I'm thrilled, to put it mildly, to hear about the Bohmian-style dialogue!!! I must look this up immediately, because I'm a great fan of David Bohm's work (Order, Science, and Creativity et al). LOVE the concept of implicate order... I had no idea such a thing as Bohmian dialogue existed! Thanks for that contribution. Wouldn't I just love to have a conversation like that... Visual facilitation would really work in this context, I think, in terms of "generalizing relationships of what subjects emerge" and compensating for the "point to point tendency"...!
Are you aware of the work of Paolo Freire? This might be interesting in the context of this thread for everyone else as well... (Pedagogy of the Oppressed).
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Permalink Reply by Franis Engel on
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Yes, Bohm was quite a thinker, and an engaging explorer when it came to the world of philosophical ideas. There exists a group of long-winded die-hards who still do the Dialogue thing. They came up with the Dialogue form together with David Bohm and believe in it, still - writing to each other daily on a private email list-server:
http://www.david-bohm.org/mailman/listinfo/bohm_dialogue
Thanks for cross-pollinating about your familiarity of Paolo Freire's ideas might relate to David Bohm's ideas about Dialogue - I'll follow up on your contribution.
Started a blog post about Bohm's work, in case people want to talk about that. (Don't want to derail this thread.)
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