Welcome to the World Café – Engaging People In Conversations That Matter.
The first train-the-trainer (TTT) program I attended many years ago left me richer in many ways. A line that stayed with me: “You don’t have to show them how smart you are; you have to show them how smart they are…” This single idea shifted my entire approach to training.
Last week, I attended my second ‘TTT’ program, built around the art of facilitation, and once again the harvest was plentiful. As I sit and reflect on the learning, distilling and internalising my takeaways, three lines stand out: “Treat participants as contributors, not empty vessels”; “Trust the wisdom of the group”; and “Less is more”.
These are questions I intend to ask myself before designing and delivering any workshop. Am I starting the design process keeping in mind the unique contribution only this group of participants can bring to the flavour of the session? Can I keep reminding myself that I am just part of the room and the group’s wisdom will emerge? What is the most important content to bring into the session and how best to do so?
To dance between the WHAT and the HOW – which is also seen through the prism of content and process needs to be an important part of design. A more facilitator-driven approach relies on the HOW, which is experiential and engaging to allow the content to emerge. Less telling, more showing and shared experiencing.
One of the new HOWs I learnt was the wonderful World Café method of “engaging people in conversations that matter”. The creators of the idea, Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, developed this facilitation process in 1995. I love the term “social technology” that they have coined to describe it. I am a strong believer in the power of conversation and asking the right questions to be a catalyst for change. The two worlds I love, communications and coaching, are connected by the power of an honest conversation, rooted in the real questions that matter.
The World Café facilitation method so elegantly brings all this together using seven design principles.
Design Principle 1) Clarify the Context: Why were we as a group coming together? What was the purpose of this TTT workshop? Who were the people in the room? Which eventually led to designing the questions for each table that would possibly offer the richest harvest (what the group can gather from the entire exercise and walk out of the room with)
Design Principle 7) Share Collective Discoveries: The conversations around each table that collectively help dots connect, allowing us to see the wholeness and value of the entire trainer system coming together. This is often referred to as the harvest phase, and finding a way to visually capture it is a best practice.
Somewhere between these 7 steps, the energy in the room shifted. It flowed away from the trainer and the group’s wisdom and presence emerged. There was a well-organised flow of ideas, where people built on others’ thinking. Clarifications were sought. Ideas were ranked, and most importantly, the feeling of being a contributor and of being heard emerged. The learning happened somewhere along the way. About the topic we were discussing but also about the many ways in which we all as trainers could use the ‘World Cafe’ in our own worlds.
I noticed the book ends of this process (design principle 1 and 7) being like the setup and closure of a coaching conversation, where the contracting phase (CC3) helps define a clear goal, and the closure of the session (CC 8) phase facilitates integration of the learning and the client’s growth.
Grateful to have had this shared experience and looking forward to bringing it alive in future sessions. The world of facilitative training beckons, and I will always remember to trust the wisdom of the group.
Acknowledgments to the creators of the World Café, which they have so graciously made available under the Creative Commons license: https://www.theworldcafe.com, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
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