Transcript The Art of Generative Conversations

What is a World Café?
• World Café Conversations are an intentional way to
create a living network of conversation around
questions that matter. A Café Conversation is a
creative process for leading collaborative dialogue,
sharing knowledge and creating possibilities for action
in groups of all sizes.
Source: http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-worldcafe.html
• The orientation of the Café is toward contribution. It
starts with somebody giving something. The purpose
of the Café is not to criticize, but to contribute. You
can’t blame anybody for giving. In the Café you don’t
have to perform, only contribute. And when you
contribute, the knowledge grows.
Source: The World Café (Brown & Isaacs)
The Principles of the World Café
Source: http://www.theworldcafe.com/
• Create Hospitable Space
• Explore Questions That Matter
– How can HP be the best lab in the world?
– What can be done to reverse the declining birth
rate in Singapore?
• Connect Diverse People and Ideas
• Encourage Each Person's Contribution
• Listen Together for Patterns, Insights and
Deeper Questions
• Make Collective Knowledge Visible
See also: http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-worldcafe.html
Hospitable Space
• Most meeting places are sterile, cold, and
impersonal. Consider choosing warm, inviting
environments with natural light and comfortable
seating. Honor our long traditions of human
hospitality by offering food and refreshments.
Hospitable space also means "safe" space--where
everyone feels free to offer their best thinking.
• Our workplaces, and many hotels and conference
centers, aren’t designed to create the right
environments for the kind of strategic thinking and
quality conversation that is so important for the future
of our business. Boardrooms and conference rooms
are so sterile and cold. And those big tables are
barriers too.
Methodology of the World Café
• The environment is set up like a café, with tables for
four, tablecloths covered by paper tablecloths,
flowers, some colored pens and, if possible, candles,
quiet music and refreshments.
• People sit four to a table and have a series of
conversational rounds lasting from 20 to 45 minutes
about one or more questions which are personally
meaningful to them.
• At the end of each round, one person remains at
each table as the host, while each of the other three
travel to separate tables. Table hosts welcome
newcomers to their tables and share the essence of
that table's conversation so far.
• The newcomers relate any conversational threads
which they are carrying -- and then the conversation
continues, deepening as the round progresses.
Source: http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-worldcafe.html
Café Hosting Tips
Source: http://www.thesystemsthinker.com/PDFs/1205pk.pdf
• Set up Café-style tables or another relaxed
setting.
• Provide food, beverages, music, art, natural
light, and greenery.
• Encourage informal conversation focused on
key questions.
• Allow time for silence and reflection.
• Encourage members to “cross-pollinate”
ideas and insights across groups.
Example of Graphic Recording
Please refer to:
http://www.thepegroup.org/Graphics/Graphic%20Recording%20Example.png
Café Hosting Tips
Source: http://www.thesystemsthinker.com/PDFs/1205pk.pdf
• Have materials available for
visually representing key
ideas – markers and paper.
• Weave and connect
emerging themes and
insights.
• Honor the social nature of
learning and community
building.
• Help members notice that
individual conversations are
part of and contribute to a
larger field of collective
knowledge and wisdom.
Hosting Conversations that Matter
• This concise guide details how to use the six
principles of the World Café in designing Café
conversations. It contains tips for creating
powerful questions, explains the World Café
assumptions and etiquette, and has
checklists for setting up your meeting space,
as well as all the supplies you will need on
hand to support your gathering.
• http://www.theworldcafe.com/TWC%20Resource%20Guide.pdf
Reference Book: The World Cafe: Shaping Our
Futures Through Conversations That Matter by
Juanita Brown, David Isaacs, World Cafe
Community, and Margaret J. Wheatley
Ideas Generated from a World Café: “What can be done
to reverse the declining birth rate in Singapore?”
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Girls in the same National Service
(NS) camps
1 year parent leave (to be shared
between both parents)
Legalize and practice polygamy
Allow kids in offices
Have SDU leave
Cheaper hospital bills
Plan power failures
Priority for families with more
children to attend school
Legalize pornography
Curfews for married adults
No examinations for post-grads
Stay @ home dads
Ban condom sales
Legalize surrogate mothers
Distribute leaky condoms
No TV programs after 10PM
Remove all entertainment
Free child delivery
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Advocate family values in society
Relax adoption criteria
Reduce working hours to reduce
stress
Build a family bonding culture
Legalize the use of sperm bank for
single mothers
Social security for single mothers
Free education, esp for IHIL
Kamasutra in National Education
Remove social stigma on
single/unmarried parents
Subsidize IVF
Support groups on housework and
childcare
Incentives to PRs
Increase paternity & child sick leave
Nanny support groups
Relax HDB rulings on homes for
single parents
Generate family building emotions
through banners & adverts
Exercise
• Break into groups of 5.
• Conduct a World Café based on the topic:
“How can I leverage informal
knowledge networks at my
workplace?”