Launching straight into the agenda for your sessions or meetings is not always the best way to start. We all need to create some buffer space for participants to establish themselves and shed the skin of the previous meeting or decompress after stepping out of the classroom.
The whole first phase of your sessions might take on the intention of “talking about the talking”, in which we explore the readiness of the team to start, the disposition that is most appropriate and the type of thinking required.
A successful tactic to lead and facilitate sessions in this way is to start with the innocuous invitation:
What’s on your mind?
I am always seeking ways I might improve my ability to facilitate dialogue or create the conditions for open discourse.
When you ask this simple question you create an opening for everyone in the room to share something, to allow everyone to be heard and also to gauge the readiness for the time ahead.
The group may (or may not) share something, including me, and it helps create a respectful, open space for dialogue. When we have had time to contribute early on we are much more likely to contribute throughout the session.
Later during a reflection or debrief you might make the connection to powerlessness and vulnerability, exploring how that opening impacted the work you did together.
All it takes is to ask that simple question. When you do create that little space for sharing you respectfully register the emotional (and operational) state of your colleagues, which increases the team’s awareness of the pressures we might be feeling.
This heightened emotional and operational awareness of each other is another step closer to deeper empathy and improved collaboration.
#28daysofwriting
Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
from The Curious Creative
http://edte.ch/blog/2018/02/21/ask-this-little-question-to-improve-collaboration/
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