Meeting Facilitation II

It is a few days out from the intensity of our officer's retreat and I have been thinking about what worked best.

In order to keep meetings from dragging and turning into grueling sessions of room-coma, nodding napping and secret Words with Friends playing, I try and mix things around—one agenda item over dinner, one sitting outside on benches, one in small groups that report back, etc.

meeting at board table

meeting over dinner

much more fun

This year during the Happy Hour break we put all of our names in a hat and picked pairs of conversation partners. Whoever wound up  paired spent Happy Hour together in a structured conversation: What is your story? How did you get to this profession?  What have you accomplished in your role as an officer that you feel really good about?

Aloft has a very nice bar with cool conversation corners and the lobby view of the flats.

view from lobby balcony

The next day at the conclusion of the meeting, I used a closing exercise in which we stood and talked about one take-away and one appreciation for another person in the circle. I was struck by how many people cited the experience of one-on-one conversations as a highlight experience. Despite the fact that we have all known each other for years, and are often in large group situations together, setting aside time to really get to know someone one-on-one and in a deeper way had a profound effect on not just each pair, but the group as a whole.

We plan on using the experience in our larger group meetings in November to expand the circle of relationships and build a better team in the large group council of leaders.

Meeting Facilitation I

Part of what I do professionally is facilitate meetings for the Executive Council and the Officers of the Cantors Assembly. Yesterday and today we are meeting as a group of 11 at the Cleveland Aloft for two days of strategic planning, goal setting and action planning for the coming year.

One of the most transformative tools I use with this group is called Dialogue Circle. We, as a group of cantors, are all leaders in our own communities and many come from a strong performance background. This makes for a group of people used to being in charge, accustomed to speaking in public, and very very comfortable being the sole star of an event!

Dialogue Circle is deceptively simple. The group chooses an object (in our case it has been a tallit, a marimba and courtesy of the Aloft today it is a rubix cube) which is passed from person to person. Only the person holding the object can speak. They hold the rubix cube until they have exhausted what they have to say—everyone else at the table listens. No texting and checking phones, no getting up for coffee, no doodling on notepads. The rubix cube transverses the circle fully, and then, if necessary people raise their hand to receive the cube and speak again.

Time was that Cantors Assembly discussions were characterized by leadership by whoever could talk the loudest, and nobody ever got to express a thought without being interrupted several times to either be disputed, corrected or improved upon. It was a jangling exhausting experience and there was a certain aggressiveness in the room, with people according to their nature getting more and more animated, or more and more resigned.

Come the Dialogue Circle and there is a completely altered atmosphere. One of respect, relaxation and attentiveness. Meetings—the bane of our existence in the work world—are effective, pleasant and more akin to a lingering conversation over dinner than a battleground. And during the five years that we have been doing this as a group, we have noticed an incredible shift in our relationships and effectiveness as a group. Simple but powerful!