The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace

By The Institue for Cultural Affairs

The best 'how-to' for encouraging consensus in firms and organizations.

Communication within many organizations has been reduced to email, electronic file transfer, and hasty sound bytes at hurried meetings. More and more, people appear to have forgotten the value of wisdom gained by ordinary conversations. The Art of Focused Conversation convincingly restores this most human of attributes to prime place within businesses and organizations, and demonstrates what can be accomplished through the medium of focused conversation.

Developed, tested, and extensively used by professionals in the field of organizational development, The Art of Focused Conversation is an invaluable resource for all those working to improve communications in firms and organizations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Society Publishers
• Release date: Jul 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781550925524

Book preview

The Art of Focused Conversation

100 WAYS TO ACCESS GROUP WISDOM IN THE WORKPLACE

The Art of Focused Conversation

100 WAYS TO ACCESS GROUP WISDOM IN THE WORKPLACE

GENERAL EDITOR:

Brian Stanfield

for The Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs

In memory of Beverley Parker, a co-founder of The Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA Canada), and Brian Williams, an early executive director. Both were instrumental in setting the course for the Institute.

Cataloguing in Publication Data:

A catalog record for this publication is available from the National Library of Canada.

Copyright © 2000 by The Canadian Institute for Cultural Affairs.

All rights reserved.

First published in 1997 by The Canadian Institute for Cultural Affairs.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Editors: Ronnie Seagren and Brian Griffith.

Design and layout: Ilona Staples.

Eighth printing March, 2006.

New Society Publishers acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities, and the assistance of the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council.

eISBN: 978-1-55092-552-4

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.

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Table of Contents

Introduction: The Origin of a Method

Part I: Theory and Practice

CHAPTER 1. WHY CONVERSATIONS? AND WHY THE WORKPLACE?

The Fragmentation of Conversation

The image of conversation

Sound-bite conversations

Traditional Mental Habits

The culture of advocacy

Failure to understand each other

The possessors of absolute truth

The tyranny of the OR

The critics

The adversarial mode

Changes in the Workplace

The whole-system organization

The learning organization

Leaders as askers of questions

Beyond token participation

Methodology of real participation

CHAPTER 2. THE FOCUSED CONVERSATION METHOD: AN OVERVIEW

The focused conversation

A four-stage process

What if governments used the focused conversation

Public meetings

The workplace

No right or wrong answers

Advantages

CHAPTER 3. THE STRUCTURE OF THE FOCUSED CONVERSATION

A natural process and a life method

Roots of the method

Life presuppositions

A whole-system process

The relationship arrows

Applying the method to structure a conversation

The objective level

The reflective level

The interpretive level

The decisional level

The aliases of the focused conversation

CHAPTER 4. LEADING A FOCUSED CONVERSATION: CONVERSATIONAL HAZARDS

How to Lead One of the Conversations in this Book

1. Select a suitable setting

2. The invitation

3. Opening

4. The first questions

5. Subsequent questions

6. Getting off the topic: what do you do?

7. Long or abstract answers: what do you do?

8. If an argument starts up: what do you do?

9. If people react to others’ answers: what do you do?

10. Closing

Some Things to Keep in Mind

1. The leader has nothing to teach

2. The wisdom of the group

3. Abstract questions, abstract answers

4. The right group

5. Validity of the data

What about answers that are ethically or factually wrong?

6. Group ownership of the issue and content

7. Facilitator’s responsibility

CHAPTER 5. STEPS FOR PREPARING A CONVERSATION FROM SCRATCH

Preparatory Steps

1. Focus the conversation

2. Write down the intent of the conversation

3. Ensure a concrete beginning point for your objective questions

The power of focus

4. Brainstorm questions to realize the rational objective and experiential aim

5. Select the questions you need

6. Jiggle the order of the questions

7. Rehearse the conversation in your head

How many questions at each level?

8. Prepare your opening comments carefully

9. Prepare the closing carefully

10. Reflect on the conversation, the group, yourself

Why Didn’t My Conversation Work? and What to Do about It

1. Group isn’t focusing

2. Group doesn’t respond to questions

3. Group gives wrong answers

4. Group is not answering with real answers

5. Some participants dominate

6. Group goes off on tangents

7. Not getting useful results

8. Arguments break out

9. Group challenges the facilitator

Part II: The 100 Conversations

A. CONVERSATIONS FOR EVALUATING AND REVIEWING

A1.Reviewing the year

A2.Reviewing a workshop

A3.Reviewing a consultant’s presentation

A4.Reviewing a planning event

A5.Reviewing the day

A6.Reviewing an organization’s past

A7.Evaluating a seminar

A8.Evaluating a curriculum

A9.Evaluating the progress of a project

A10. Analysing a product that failed to sell

A11. Evaluating a marketing package

A12. Reviewing a major report

A13. Evaluating a staff service program

A14. Evaluating a trade show

A15. Evaluating a new business form

B. CONVERSATIONS FOR PREPARATION AND PLANNING

B1.Focusing a group before a workshop

B2.Introducing a new training topic

B3.Preparing a short presentation

B4.Getting input for a book review

B5.Preparing a group to write a report

B6.Preparing a symbol and slogan

B7.Planning a workplace study group

B8.Preparing the agenda for a meeting

B9.Organizing an in-house service group

B10. Planning a staff party

B11. Working on a brochure

B12. Assembling a budget

B13. Redesigning office space

B14. Envisioning new decor

B15. Selecting a topic for an upcoming conference

B16. Designing a customer service manual

B17. Initiating marketing planning

B18. Preparing a strategic presentation on a new product

C. CONVERSATIONS FOR COACHING AND MENTORING

C1.Coaching a colleague

C2.Talking through a job description

C3.Giving feedback to an instructor

C4.Holding accountability with an employee

C5.Discussing a set of employee guidelines

C6.Meditating on a difficult situation

C7.Mentoring a staff person in a family crisis affecting work #1

C8.Mentoring a staff person in a family crisis affecting work # 2

C9.Monitoring a new employee

C10. Resolving a longstanding misunderstanding

C11. Responding to a personal complaint

C12. Calming an upset customer

D. CONVERSATIONS FOR INTERPRETING INFORMATION

D1.Interpreting a story

D2.Sharing an essay

D3.Discussing a training video

D4.Holding a movie conversation

D5.Assessing social trends

D6.Holding a news conversation

D7.Pondering organizational change

D8.Appraising a sales offer

D9.Tailoring your services to a customer’s needs

D10. Interpreting a systems audit

D11. Analysing budget performance

D12. Reflecting on a chaotic meeting

D13. Considering the impact of new regulations on a product

D14. Reflecting on a proposal for departmental reorganization

E. DECISION-MAKING CONVERSATIONS

E1.Helping a workmate think through a decision

E2.Making assignments within a team

E3.Deciding work priorities

E4. Discussing a staff response to a strategy document

E5.Breaking up a decisional logjam in a group

E6.Deciding on a trade show strategy

E7.Reframing a team’s mission

E8.Implementing a new board policy

E9.Determining program priorities

E10. Developing terms of reference for a major project evaluation

E11. Building the annual budget

E12. Dealing with work environment issues

E13. Reworking office protocol

F. MANAGING AND SUPERVISING CONVERSATIONS

F1.Canvassing employees

F2.Reviewing work descriptions

F3.Interviewing a job applicant

F4.Musing on a frustrating meeting

F5.Conducting a performance appraisal

F6.Assessing staff workplace needs

F7.Troubleshooting a stalled project

F8.Interpreting a shop floor grievance

F9.Naming market influences

F10. Analysing sales statistics

F11. Dealing with delegation issues

F12. Collaborating on a supply problem

F13. Reflecting on a transition

F14. Highlighting the comparative profile of a firm

F15. Building a phased timeline for a restructuring project

F16. New managers’ reflection on their leadership roles

F17. Assessing the impact of a training experience

F18. Creating participation guidelines

G. PERSONAL AND CELEBRATIVE CONVERSATIONS

G1.Reflecting on the day

G2.Learning from a life event

G3.Planning for personal growth

G4.Facilitator’s internal reflection while leading a group

G5.Appraising an additional assignment

G6.Celebrating a great victory

G7.Celebrating a colleague’s retirement: a conversation with the individual

G8.Celebrating a colleague’s retirement: group reflection

G9.Celebrating a staff birthday

G10. Interviewing the employee of the month

Part III: Appendices

A. Sets of Reflective and Interpretive Questions

B. The Bohm Dialogical Method

C. Power of the Conversation in Relation to Art

D. Prince 5 Weapons Story (to accompany Story-Telling Conversation)

E. Leading an Informal Conversation

F. Institute of Cultural Affairs International (ICAI)

G. Who Will Design These Conversations for Me?

H. Leading a Focused Conversation: A Summary

I. Preparing a Focused Conversation

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

CHARTS AND SIDEBARS

Relationship Arrows Diagram

Objective Level in a Nutshell

Reflective Level in a Nutshell

Interpretive Level in a Nutshel

Decisional Level in a Nutshell

What about answers that are ethically or factually wrong?

The Power of Focus

How many questions at each level?

Conversation Preparation Format

Why Didn’t My Conversation Work

Preparing a Focused Conversation

Preface

ICA Canada sells a lot of books—Winning Through Participation by Laura Spencer of ICA Chicago was the first book published on ICA’s technology of participation—ToP™. Then came Participation Works and Government Works, both edited by Jim Troxel. These were followed by Terry Bergdall’s Methods for Active Participation, Bruce Williams’ Fifty Ways to Build Team Consensus (our hottest seller), John Jenkins’ International Facilitators Companion (from The Netherlands), the Belden-Hyatt-Ackley book, Towards the Learning Organization, and, most recently, Beyond Prince and Merchant (on citizen participation) edited by John Burbidge. We want facilitators to have the best methodological resources possible. Most of these books were written by people in the ICA network outside Canada.

Maybe the time had come for ICA Canada to write its own book, the staff mused. But on what? A conversation started up, fuelled by reports from several graduates of ICA’s Group Facilitation course. We remembered their comments about the focused conversation, and the changes that its use in their organizations had brought about:

• The sustained use of the focused conversation has changed the environment in our organization.

• The conversation method is a tool that is constantly deepening the learning of my staff.

• This method brings about a much better dialogue across the board in my organization.

• This is a method that enables us to deal with an issue before it turns into a major blowup.

As we rehearsed these and many other comments about the focused conversation, it became clear that this method, all on its own, had the capacity to let something completely new loose in the world of work and organizations. It was a superb learning tool, all on its own, and inherent in it was the capacity to launch a revolution in the way people listen to and talk with each other. This was worth writing about. So we set to it.

Our first step was to give ourselves a structure to work on this together, so we launched monthly research days for the first Monday of each month. On the first, we brainstormed 130 topics for focused conversation.

The next step was to focus the book. Since over half the brainstormed conversation topics were set in the workplace, we decided to emphasize it, so that business, government and NGO environments were included.

The next step was to design a format we could use for every single conversation. With that in hand, we started writing. After 30 were completed, we had to turn our attention to other work for the rest of the year. No one was free enough to dog the book.

In January 1997, we started again, in earnest. We asked associates, colleagues and course grads for examples of conversations they had actually used in an organizational setting. For many years ICA has taught the focused conversation method in its Group Facilitation course. Graduates and practitioners were quick to report on how they were using the method in their own workplaces. Many wrote up and sent in specific conversations. Colleagues in different parts of the world provided other discussions from their own use. Other people recommended titles for the book.

By the end of May, we had 90 conversations, and started passing them around for peer review.

We clumped the conversations into seven main workplace arenas or processes:

1. Reviewing and evaluating

2. Preparation and planning

3. Coaching and mentoring

4. Data and media interpretation

5. Decision-making

6. Managing and supervising

7. Personal and celebrative

As the book took shape, we created three taskforces. One was on content revision, one on the business plan and marketing, and one on layout and publishing. Another outside taskforce was devoted to textual editing. This is often the most ticklish part of corporate publishing. The sheer drive to get it right clashes with the passionate drive to get it done.

Bit by bit, things came together. As reports came in from the various task forces, key decisions were made about the title, appearance, and feel of the book.

The team of creators of this book include the ICA staff members below. The trainer-consultants named below train 1500 people a year, and work with as many in their consulting activities, all over Canada and with every sector. It is the practical grounded wisdom from these interactions that has gone into this book.

Duncan Holmes is the Executive Director of ICA Canada. His infectious style has made him one of the most sought after facilitators in the business of helping organizations and communities plan for change. His current emphasis is on facilitating effective organizational change and training leaders in participatory approaches that work. Duncan’s contribution to the creation of the book constantly pushed the edge of the historical context, as well as insisting on methodological integrity.

Jo Nelson has lived the concept of enabling consensus formation and enhancing group motivation for many years in many different countries. Jo specializes in enabling people with diverse perspectives to communicate effectively. While teaching across Canada, she is also available to consult with organizations to respond to their individual needs. In doing the book, Jo’s insistence was on keeping every conversation grounded in concrete situations. She also wrote the rational objective and experiential aim for each conversation.

Wayne Nelson’s mastery of process and his capacity to see deep patterns enables him to help a group get at the heart of the matter. He has worked for 27 years with organizations and communities around the world to plan and implement projects. Wayne specializes in designing and facilitating group processes that enable people to form their own innovative action plans. An excellent personal coach, he spends many hours a week mentoring ICA program graduates. Wayne’s mastery of processes and patterns was used over and over again in the revision of the first and second drafts of this book.

Bill Staples is a highly creative and energetic person who has helped communities, hospitals and businesses across Canada for 25 years. Bill specializes in team building, strategic thinking and sharing approaches that work. In addition, he produces instructional videos and publishes ICA’s tri-annual newsletter, Edges. Bill’s consulting and publishing wisdom fused together as he created conversations for a great variety of organizational situations, while at the same time overseeing the budget and publishing dimensions.

Jeanette Stanfield is a skilled educator who has worked with the discipline of imaginal education for 30 years, in preschool, primary and adult education. More recently her research has led her to applying multimodal learning and learning styles to the practice of facilitation and the delivery of ICA’s training courses. Jeanette’s insight on how the cognitive environment can release or stifle creativity was a helpful guide as we each struggled with designing the conversations.

Brian Stanfield is a curriculum consultant, teacher, writer and editor. He was a dean of ICA’s Global Academy for many years. He has taught thousands of people the theory and practice of participatory skills and human development. Brian’s wealth of training experiences from round the world ensures that ICA’s courses are practical, focused and have solid internal consistency. He has shepherded the book to completion through all its aspects.

Other people assisted in putting this book together. We are particularly grateful for the encouragement and practical help offered by colleagues from several nations. Many sent in conversations they had used and offered helpful suggestions for the title. Others showed how we could use the book: Shelley Cleverly, Mike Coxon, David Dycke, Brian Griffith, Betsy Heately, Suzanne Jackson, Debra Kosemetzky, D’Arcy Mackenzie, Jerry Mings, Darrell Phillips, Madelyn Webb, Michael Zroback from Canada; John Burbidge, Linda Jones, David McCleskey and Laura Spencer of the United States; Sue Chapman, and John and Julie Miesen from Australia; John Epps from Malaysia, and Jack Gilles from India.

Particular appreciation is due to Gordon Harper of ICA: US for creating the treasury of reflective questions which appear in this book. John Kloepfer graciously shared his Ph.D. dissertation on the method behind these conversations. Thanks are due to Sheighlah Hickey and Sara Goldman for their painstaking proofing and ordering of the conversations, Christine Wong for her constant material support, and to Janis Clennett for her help with the design of conversations related to marketing and sales. Thank you Ilona Staples for your competent and meticulous layout of this book.

Finally, we are grateful to Brian Griffith and Ronnie Seagren for their spirited commitment to the material, for their vast editorial competence, and their sensitivity in transforming the text to make it readily accessible to the reader.

—Brian Stanfield, General Editor

INTRODUCTION

The Origin of a Method

Once a society loses this capacity [for dialogue] all that is left is a cacophony of voices battling it out to see who wins and who loses. There is no capacity to go deeper, to find a deeper meaning that transcends individual views and self interest. It seems reasonable to ask whether many of our deeper problems in governing ourselves today, the so-called gridlock and loss of mutual respect and caring…might not stem from this lost capacity to talk with one another, to think together as part of a larger community.

Peter M. Senge, A New View of Institutional Leadership in Reflections on Leadership

History’s greatest failure of dialogue, World War II, happened in our modern and technological age. People devoted to understanding, be they artists, theologians, or mothers, watched in horror as whole societies tried to systematically destroy each other. But perhaps no social group was more deeply disturbed than the surviving soldiers, who came home from the war often unable to speak of what they had seen. In whatever ways they could, they tried to fathom that fearsome failure of civilization. They searched for a way to understand the incomprehensible they had experienced.

One of these searchers was an army chaplain, Joseph Mathews, who had accompanied the US Marines in the Pacific Island landings of Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. When he returned from the war to his university professorship, he was consumed with the need to help people process the events of their lives. But how could people build their own meaning out of their own trials? And how could they achieve that together?

One person who proved most helpful to Mathews was an art professor. She showed him that any encounter with art involves a trialogue—or three-way conversation—between the art, the artist, and the observer. Thus, it is relatively useless to ask a pianist, for example, what is meant by a certain composition. All the musician can do is to recreate the experience by playing it again, and letting the listener respond to that.

The professor went on: First you have to take the work of art seriously by observing carefully what’s there, and what’s not. Then you have to look just as seriously at what is going on inside you as you observe the art to see how you are reacting, what repels you, what delights you. You have to peel back layers of awareness so that you can begin to ask what it means to you. Art, the professor explained, is like listening. You must work to create your own meaning from an artwork, or a conversation.

Suddenly lights went on in the professor’s mind. This was connecting with things he was reading in the 19th century Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, and some 20th century European thinkers. Kierkegaard and the phenomenologists described the self as a series of relationships or awarenesses that observed what was going on in life, reacted internally to those observations, created meaning or insight out of both of these, and drew out the implications or decisions implicit in that insight or meaning.

Mathews decided to create a format for conversations using this approach, and to experiment with conversations on various art forms with his university community. He tried it first with Van Gogh’s painting, Starry Night. He went on to use group reflections on ee cummings and on a current movie, On The Waterfront. He began calling his method, the art form conversation.

In a conversation on Picasso’s Guernica, Mathews asked his students to describe the objects in the painting. Then he invited them to look at their inner response. OK, he said, Now I want you to think what sound you hear coming from the painting? I’m going to count to three, and then all of you make the sound you hear. Make it as loud or as quiet as you feel it should be. Ready? One, two, three!—the room exploded in howls of pain or rage. The door flew open and two students from the hallway stuck their heads in, their expressions resembling the faces in the painting itself. In stunned silence, they heard the teacher ask, Where do you see this painting going on in your life?

The results were startling. These students had thought of art as a cultural thing, or a decorative object. Now they saw their lives intimately involved with and reflected in art. They saw the art form as a force challenging their habitual stance towards life. Said one participant, Suddenly I saw that these art forms were making a claim on me. They were saying, Wake up! Live your real life."

Mathews’ peers at the university joined his experimental approach to teaching. They tried various styles of participatory reflection in different courses. Eventually, they developed a format fluid enough to fit many subjects, yet structured enough to be described as a method. Voilà!—the birth of the art form conversation.

Five years later, in the 1960s, Mathews and some colleagues moved to a Chicago urban slum to work with local community leaders. There they put the art form conversation to heavy use, enabling neighbours to reflect together. This became an essential part of the ICA’s community-building efforts around the world.

Thirty years later in the 1990s, organizations and government departments