Flow of Day 2
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Story of Day 2
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The World Café
Excited to participate in my very first World Café. The theme question of the #WF was ”How can we better invite and host the conversations that matter to create a thriving future for all?”
We were introduced to the concept of World Café – maximum 5 people around the same table, talking about the same question, documenting the talks through writing and drawing on the table paper.
The first question was ”What are the difficult conversations we are having?” The intention was to let each person talk about this question in an over a coffee relaxed kind of way, while the others were practising the four levels of listening. Just these basic rules made the conversations more meaningful and the participants more connected to each other and themselves.
In the beginning of the session I realised I was trying to host the group and steer the conversation too much in a way to let people get equal amount of talking time, but I then realised it wasn’t mine to do. Steering didn’t make it a relaxed conversation and my energies were not in a deep listening mode. I tried to step back and live the question instead.
The co-hosts of the World café then gave a signal when there was about five minutes left. Then 4/5 participants changed table to one of choice. The principle was that one person stayed at the table – summerising the previous dialogues to the newcomers of that table.
Then it was time for the second question: ”What are the difficult conversations you are not having and why?” It was amazing to see the deep conversations coming alive at the table, when people shared situations and topics which where really important to them.
Sense making and Harvesting from World café. Each table agreed on three learnings from the conversations. They also had the possibility of adding one learning that stood out. The purpose was to spot similarities and at the same time harvest different views in the room.
I really liked World Café and it’s powerful method to create connection with people who actually don’t really know each other. I also realised it’s a method which demands a lot of organising and work afterwards to actually respect the participants by turning the harvest to whatever the purpose of the world café has.
The Breath Pattern
During the session I didn’t really get the name of the method; breed, or something, and it didn’t make sense in my mind at first. If it had been a couple of years ago I would have asked about it right away – demanding clarity for myself. But today I try to practise to stay in the unknown for a while – and see if clarity will come.
The Breath Pattern and its 8 breaths of process architechture is a foundational map for group process, repeating itself over the life of an initiative or process.
It starts with different steps for opening up in the divergence phase, leads to an emergence phase and then ends with convergence. The methodology for creating processes using the principles of the Breath Pattern is still somewhat not totally clear to me, but I think it has given me the vocabulary, understanding the purpose and I feel I would have the courage to try it out – with others to co-host and explore designing a process architechture from the breath pattern.
Much of the learnings of this Art of Hosting training was actually about me getting a framework and a vocabulary for principles and methods I have been practising and been a part of earlier, but without having the full picture of The Art of Hosting context and how they are related to each other and their bigger purpose. One of the most powerful insights to me personally was the advice to never host alone. I have had so many doubts and it gave me so much strength to realise: this is for me, I can do this – as long as I’m not alone in the hosting and supporting of the whole.
The Dialogue walk
We were paired with the instruction to go for a 30 minutes dialogue walk. The topic of the conversation was the question:
What was the moment in time when a question had an impact on you?
Who was asking that question and why.
The first 15 minutes were for one person to share their story and then we should shift. I had the privilege to talk to Mia and we had a very connected conversation.
Powerful questions
The day went on with an exploration and practise on powerful questions. Developing powerful questions is a crucial element to creating the conversational space we are seeking. Yet it is so difficult.
I can really relate to that having used the power of questions as a kind of weapon in my past as a journalist, but I didn’t – at the time I was active – really reflect on them in a deeper sense. But questions still have a big part in my life. I want to learn and understand what is happening and why, what are the experiences people have and so on. Often people tend to feel this is not the right time for questions – we’re in the doing phase. Or it could also be me not being careful with the scope or the timing of the questions…. A lot of possibilities of learnings in this field for me.
This session really supported me in the importance of taking time to develop and shape a good calling question with care, and to do it with others, because it can make all the difference for if you are actually creating anything of value or get stuck.
Wicked question game
This was a very powerful method where we were teamed up in a group of four. I was in a group with Zoe, Rebecka and Su. Everyone formulated a question which was important to them and then the others were to ask questions to the question while the person who created the question was only to be silent.
One person was sitting and received the questions. Two persons were sitting in front asking questions to the question person. One person was standing behind only listening and were to tap gently on the shoulder of one of the persons sitting if they wanted to add a question.
One insight was really the power of silence and to practice self hosting since there were a lot of feelings emerging in this session.
Village news – what needs to be shared with the whole group?
A forum for questions and information concerning the whole group.
Coaching for the hosts of smaller Check-ins by Narayan
I was one of a limited number of people given the opportunity to host the smaller check-ins on the third day of training. In the whole training I was struggling with trying to find a balance between stepping up and holding back, in order to handle my own longing and leave the space and the opportunity for others to step up. I was given the chance and was happy – but yet felt the disappointment within the others.
I practised the self hosting and asked myself the question What is mine to do? But living the questions are actually really hard. Though living the questions in an art of hosting training is much easier than in every day life. Just realising and staying with the insight of the difficulties of actually living the change is really valuable for me. It helps me not judging myself too hard if I don’t manage to really live the questions…
The guidance by Narayan was really clarifying and I felt such a strong support knowing David was to co-host the check-in with me.
Prep talk for the Celebration Party after the Gala Dinner of Day 3
David and I were talking about many opportunities – starting from the fact we were the only ones who had signed up for the preparation of the Celebration party. Then we changed the scope to make it an invite for the group to co-create the evening together based on the principles of Open Mic.
Balancing participatory leadership of order and chaos, worries of a total disaster if no one stepped up, with trust in the group, and then being guided by the principles of what’s about to happen will happen, and whoever is in the room is supposed to be there.
And we who were there knows what happened, right? Wow! I’m ever so grateful for the process, the experiences and I will cherish the memories in my heart always. Thank you!
Excited to participate in my very first World Café. The theme question of the #WF was ”How can we better invite and host the conversations that matter to create a thriving future for all?”
We were introduced to the concept of World Café – maximum 5 people around the same table, talking about the same question, documenting the talks through writing and drawing on the table paper.
The first question was ”What are the difficult conversations we are having?” The intention was to let each person talk about this question in an over a coffee relaxed kind of way, while the others were practising the four levels of listening. Just these basic rules made the conversations more meaningful and the participants more connected to each other and themselves.
In the beginning of the session I realised I was trying to host the group and steer the conversation too much in a way to let people get equal amount of talking time, but I then realised it wasn’t mine to do. Steering didn’t make it a relaxed conversation and my energies were not in a deep listening mode. I tried to step back and live the question instead.
The co-hosts of the World café then gave a signal when there was about five minutes left. Then 4/5 participants changed table to one of choice. The principle was that one person stayed at the table – summerising the previous dialogues to the newcomers of that table.
Then it was time for the second question: ”What are the difficult conversations you are not having and why?” It was amazing to see the deep conversations coming alive at the table, when people shared situations and topics which where really important to them.
Sense making and Harvesting from World café. Each table agreed on three learnings from the conversations. They also had the possibility of adding one learning that stood out. The purpose was to spot similarities and at the same time harvest different views in the room.
I really liked World Café and it’s powerful method to create connection with people who actually don’t really know each other. I also realised it’s a method which demands a lot of organising and work afterwards to actually respect the participants by turning the harvest to whatever the purpose of the world café has.
The Breath Pattern
During the session I didn’t really get the name of the method; breed, or something, and it didn’t make sense in my mind at first. If it had been a couple of years ago I would have asked about it right away – demanding clarity for myself. But today I try to practise to stay in the unknown for a while – and see if clarity will come.
The Breath Pattern and its 8 breaths of process architechture is a foundational map for group process, repeating itself over the life of an initiative or process.
It starts with different steps for opening up in the divergence phase, leads to an emergence phase and then ends with convergence. The methodology for creating processes using the principles of the Breath Pattern is still somewhat not totally clear to me, but I think it has given me the vocabulary, understanding the purpose and I feel I would have the courage to try it out – with others to co-host and explore designing a process architechture from the breath pattern.
Much of the learnings of this Art of Hosting training was actually about me getting a framework and a vocabulary for principles and methods I have been practising and been a part of earlier, but without having the full picture of The Art of Hosting context and how they are related to each other and their bigger purpose. One of the most powerful insights to me personally was the advice to never host alone. I have had so many doubts and it gave me so much strength to realise: this is for me, I can do this – as long as I’m not alone in the hosting and supporting of the whole.
The Dialogue walk
We were paired with the instruction to go for a 30 minutes dialogue walk. The topic of the conversation was the question:
What was the moment in time when a question had an impact on you?
Who was asking that question and why.
The first 15 minutes were for one person to share their story and then we should shift. I had the privilege to talk to Mia and we had a very connected conversation.
Powerful questions
The day went on with an exploration and practise on powerful questions. Developing powerful questions is a crucial element to creating the conversational space we are seeking. Yet it is so difficult.
I can really relate to that having used the power of questions as a kind of weapon in my past as a journalist, but I didn’t – at the time I was active – really reflect on them in a deeper sense. But questions still have a big part in my life. I want to learn and understand what is happening and why, what are the experiences people have and so on. Often people tend to feel this is not the right time for questions – we’re in the doing phase. Or it could also be me not being careful with the scope or the timing of the questions…. A lot of possibilities of learnings in this field for me.
This session really supported me in the importance of taking time to develop and shape a good calling question with care, and to do it with others, because it can make all the difference for if you are actually creating anything of value or get stuck.
Wicked question game
This was a very powerful method where we were teamed up in a group of four. I was in a group with Zoe, Rebecka and Su. Everyone formulated a question which was important to them and then the others were to ask questions to the question while the person who created the question was only to be silent.
One person was sitting and received the questions. Two persons were sitting in front asking questions to the question person. One person was standing behind only listening and were to tap gently on the shoulder of one of the persons sitting if they wanted to add a question.
One insight was really the power of silence and to practice self hosting since there were a lot of feelings emerging in this session.
Village news – what needs to be shared with the whole group?
A forum for questions and information concerning the whole group.
Coaching for the hosts of smaller Check-ins by Narayan
I was one of a limited number of people given the opportunity to host the smaller check-ins on the third day of training. In the whole training I was struggling with trying to find a balance between stepping up and holding back, in order to handle my own longing and leave the space and the opportunity for others to step up. I was given the chance and was happy – but yet felt the disappointment within the others.
I practised the self hosting and asked myself the question What is mine to do? But living the questions are actually really hard. Though living the questions in an art of hosting training is much easier than in every day life. Just realising and staying with the insight of the difficulties of actually living the change is really valuable for me. It helps me not judging myself too hard if I don’t manage to really live the questions…
The guidance by Narayan was really clarifying and I felt such a strong support knowing David was to co-host the check-in with me.
Prep talk for the Celebration Party after the Gala Dinner of Day 3
David and I were talking about many opportunities – starting from the fact we were the only ones who had signed up for the preparation of the Celebration party. Then we changed the scope to make it an invite for the group to co-create the evening together based on the principles of Open Mic.
Balancing participatory leadership of order and chaos, worries of a total disaster if no one stepped up, with trust in the group, and then being guided by the principles of what’s about to happen will happen, and whoever is in the room is supposed to be there.
And we who were there knows what happened, right? Wow! I’m ever so grateful for the process, the experiences and I will cherish the memories in my heart always. Thank you!
Teach: Four-Fold Practice
Overview of the framework
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The World Cafe
Read more about the methodology in p.33 of your Practice Guide
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Harvest from the World Cafe
Teach: Breath Pattern
Read more in p.15 of your Practice Guide
Dialogue Walk
Powerful Questions
Harvest from the Dialogue Walk: A powerful question is...
How to craft better questions?
Wicked Question Game
Read more about the process in p.53 of your Practice Guide
Below are some examples of personal questions before and after the Wicked Question Game (original question on white papers, new questions on pink papers)
Below are some examples of personal questions before and after the Wicked Question Game (original question on white papers, new questions on pink papers)
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