(It’s been nearly nine years that I’ve been playing with Liberating Structures (LS). Now that LS is firmly in my practice, I’m finding ways to share it with everyone else. This blog series (Structuring our liberation – LS under the lens), looks at all structures, including some of the not-so-common structures from the LS repertoire).
Individual change may come from various places (reading, doing something intentionally or indeed habitually as in scatterfocus, or otherwise). It may happen almost struck by lightning.
Collective change, however, does not happen magically in and of itself.
It tends to start with people being in conversation.
In a comfortable, informal conversation.
When we are ‘listening to understand, not to respond‘.
When we give each other ‘time to think‘.
So it’s only fitting that one of the most simple Liberating Structures is a simple conversation format: Conversation café (or ‘convo café’ if you prefer an espresso version 😉
What is the purpose of Conversation café?
The official version?
>> Engage Everyone in Making Sense of Profound Challenges
My take on it:
>> Use the power of an informal conversation with a few formal boundaries (leaning into deep listening) to reveal profound insights…
In some ways, Convo Café epitomises the wicked question of Liberating Structures themselves: counter-intuitively, it provides just enough structure to liberate the exchange and unearth novel ideas, questions and directions.
How does it work?
Before looking at the steps, this is one of the key boundaries of Convo café: it makes use of a talking object. And these are the guidelines to heed about it:
- When holding the talking object you are invited to speak
- When someone else has the object you are invited to listen
- You may always “pass” the object if you do not feel like contributing in the moment
And another boundary – and this one is rather unusual for LS – is that it uses a group facilitator. The facilitator keeps track of the pacing of the conversation (see below) and ensures everyone adheres to 6 agreements:
With these two boundary conditions in mind, convo café follows these steps:
- Gather in small groups of 4-6 (1 min)
- Ask for a volunteer from each group to host the conversation – this person will intervene if any participant isn’t observing the 6 agreements
- Read the 6 agreements aloud to the group (1 min)
- Begin the first round, inviting each participant to use the talking object with each participant briefly sharing what they are thinking, feeling, or doing about the theme or topic (6-10 mins)
- Begin the second round with everyone contributing again after hearing initial responses to the question (6-10 mins)
- Begin the third round of open discussion, freely passing the talking object (10-30 mins)
- Start the final round with each participant sharing takeaways (6-10 mins)
As ever, adapting the pacing to culturally appropriate norms and to the size of the group is encouraged. But not to the extent that the time is really too long and encourages people to pontificate, or that the groups are beyond 8 people or so (which changes the dynamics).
Who could benefit from Convo Café?
This LS is one of the structures that can be planted pretty much anywhere, any time.
But in groups where some people struggle to be heard, it is particularly helpful because of the double protection of the talking object and the group facilitator.
What is liberating about it?
A few remarkable things happen with Conversation café:
- The use of the talking object is of course extremely liberating. It frees you from having to think to respond, from the stress of interruption, from the anguish of not being heard, from the need to talk (because you can pass along), from the chaos of talking over each other, from the rush of a normal work conversation
- The rhythm of the 4 rounds (talking object / talking object / NO talking object / talking object) brings a welcome freshness in the conversation, with just enough inoculation of open discussion to expand without getting lost in the goat rodeo again
- The invitation to focus on 4 different aspects is also liberating and helping both to diverge and converge: your going in position > your reaction to others’ points > any other opinion > your final take and emphasis on key patterns and on powerful outliers…
- The presence of a facilitator – which again is almost going against the DNA of Liberating Structures – ensures there is really a healthy dynamics (at least in principle)
- The preservation of a small group (4 to 7 people, and really 4-5 is the sweet spot) ensures everyone does get a chance to talk and to react
- The robustness of the method both on-site and online is the reason why it’s a go-to method for me…
- The ‘plasticity’ and versatility of this structure which means it can be done as a check-in, as a check-out, and as anything in between. And as you can see, it can be stretched in various directions…
And don’t you just feel like checking out this ‘conversation café’ the first time you hear it? It reminded me of David Gurteen’s knowledge café and of the little café conversations I would have with my friends, around a delicious cappuccino!
As Nadia would say, ‘café conversations‘ conjure up this kind of atmosphere:
You just ordered a cup of tasty coffee in the relaxed greenhouse Café Grinder & Flinder. Some gentle murmuring from other tables reaches you. The people next to you are immersed in conversation, while others reading or seem to wait for someone. The atmosphere is animated yet relaxed.
Nadia von Holzen
How can it be stretched even further?
Here are some ideas from the Liberating Structures webpage on convo café:
- All participants but one at each table can move to different tables every 20 minutes World-Café style (see http://www.worldcafe.com for more information)
- Link to Graphic Recording. Place flip-chart paper on each table to collect insights from each group. Encourage drawing and playful exploration
- To move into action, string together with W3 (What, So What, Now What?), 15% Solutions, Design StoryBoards, User Experience Fishbowl, or Open Space
But over time I’ve found many different ways to twist a convo café:
- While there is (in my opinion) more merit in focusing on one single strong invitation, you can also decide to use each round to address a different question. It does transform the dynamics of course
- Each round can be preceded by 1 minute, or even 30 seconds of individual reflection, to gather your ideas before proceeding to talk
- The last round – when done online – can be done as a chat harvest rather than as a conversation, particularly handy if you run out of time
- In the second round, you may also encourage people to paraphrase each other to ensure they’ve really understood each other?
- Perhaps a more radical approach could be to use each round of the conversation, or perhaps just the first two, as a socratic dialogue or even a question brainstorm
My friend Nadia von Holzen also riffed on the online version here, with some further references to related formats such as Unhurried conversations, Bohm Dialogue and the likes…
So what now?
If you’re up for some focused yet comfortable conversation, just give it a try. Maybe even with your friends. Pick 4-5 of them, lead them on this experiment. Choose a topic that resonate, bring a talking object, and run the magic.
In the space of 35 to 45 minutes you will be amazed at what can be achieved…
Related stories
See other post in this ‘LS under the lens‘ blog series. And also:
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