Everyday Items Yield Extraordinary Dialogue

The intention of dialogue is to reach new understanding and, in doing so, to form a totally new basis from which to think and act. William Isaacs. *


And often this level of dialogue can be reached by using everyday items that shake regular routines and thought patterns up!

For example, what could you do with...

• Stones


• Straws


• String

...to promote dialogue and multi person perspective sharing?

Over our years of facilitating groups we have used all of the above items (and many more) to craft and host a variety of team experiences filled with extraordinary dialogue that leads to collective action and learning.

Stones : pass around stones to a group as a check-in or check out. Whoever holds the stone has uninterrupted time to share their thoughts and ideas.

Straws : work together to build collective straw towers - debrief and land the learning by asking the group... How were decisions made? What did people notice about the role they played in the building? What kind of dialogue took place? How might this apply to the work they do together?

String or rope: toss a ball of string around the room until everyone holds a piece and has had their say. We have also used rope in activities like this one: http://www.teambuildingportal.com/games/rope-knots-game

There is no end to the things you can do. Challenge yourself and grab a random everyday object right now. Take a moment to brainstorm all the ways you could use that item to foster extraordinary dialogue.

Village Raising Questions:
What makes extraordinary dialogue?
What everyday item will you use in your next group meet?

We know you have good activity ideas - so please share them with us and others! Post your activity idea on our Raising the Village Facebook page. The post that gets the most "LIKES" between February 14 and Feb 22nd will be highlighted in one of our books and as a bonus, recieve a free copy when it is released!











* Note: William Isaacs quote from his book: A Pioneering Approach to Communicating in Business and in Life – dialogue and the art of thinking together.

Take ANY Data & Make Sense of it in 4 Village Raising Steps!

Is your group spinning data circles?


Chasing your research tail?


Getting no-where statistically fast?


Time to change that up! We’ve been there and we’ve found ways to move beyond.



Maybe you have a slew of information resulting from an interactive group dialogue session (like a world cafe) or the latest socio-economic statistics or EDI results for your community or a focus group report. Take ANY of these sources (or even better take all of these) and put your data into informed meaningful action.


Follow these 4 Village Raising Steps:


Step One: Gathering
This is the process of “becoming” aware. Consider your data’s origin. What information will help give you a well rounded (or multi dimensional) view of the issue at hand? Consider more than one source of information and many perspectives. This step will increase individual and collective awareness and might include things like focus groups, interviews, stories, and statistics. This is an optimum time to learn together and increase awareness.



Step Two: Sorting and Making Meaning
This is the time to chunk up complex data and simplify what you have gathered in Step One. Here you discover and seek clarity that leads to priorities and a shared understanding.


Step 3: Generating Ideas

You have gathered information and made meaning form it.  Now is the time to switch thinking to generative and innovative possibilities.

Step 4: Making Decisions
This is the process of moving forward with action. Here your group sets goals and visions and commits to them. Make collective decisions that are rich and full and informed. The discovery of group strengths feeds the sustainability of the action.

That’s it. Really. Truly. These 4 steps can provide you with the outline needed for your meaning making journey. Now, of course, you are likely wondering about the HOW behind these steps. Just you wait...we are almost there. Our “GO-TO Action Guides” are shaping up and will cover these very steps in detail. Soon Village Raisers, soon. In the meantime, stop spinning data circles and look at your data using the 4 steps above. Let us know what emerges.

The Right Brain Approach

Tracy's personal right brain Vision Board

Left brain thinking is being logical, analytical and data focused. Working with information demands that people kick their left brain thinking into high gear. It is practical, detail-oriented and sequential.

The right brain, on the other hand, offers an equally important strength to any meaning making process. Your right brain is engaged when you are being playful, creating and acknowledging your feelings and intuition. In the business world or academic realm, we typically plug in our left-brain logic, which is great - but don't unplug the right brain! So often, information driven processes excludes creativity which, in the long run, will squelch the great results of innovate thinking.

Here are a few ideas to add a dash of right-brain creativity into the left brain world of making sense of data:

• DRAW - we recently felt a complete change in energy (for the positive) during a long and hard strategic planning session when we had participants do some team drawings.  Not only was it a great change of of pace, but we were astounded by how thinking visually helped people better articulate the complexity that they were wrestling with.

• COLLAGE - borrowing ideas from Jennifer Lee's Right Brain Business Plan, get playful yet practical by using multiple forms of art and expression to create plans visually. Her book is a  guide to using your right-brain creativity to launch and grow a business. The same concepts can be applied to creating a plan for a community initiative, project or movement.

• Build it with LEGO^®.  Check out the LEGO^® concept of Serious Play which is an innovative, experiential process designed to enhance innovation and business performance. Based on research that shows that this kind of hands-on, minds-on learning produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world and its possibilities, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® deepens the reflection process and supports an effective dialogue – for everyone in the organization. You can do this on your own, or seek out trained facilitators online.

• PLAY - Play by Dr. Stuart Brown dedicates a chapter of his book to how playful approaches at work are the key to creativity and innovation. Withholding judgement and "playing around" with information translates into imagining, inventing and dreaming impossible solutions that are focused on joy and fulfillment. This publication makes a fantastic book study to get a team in a play head-space.  There are some great companion videos, too.

• Use GRAPHIC RECORDING or hire a graphic facilitator. If you are drawn to bring some visual elements into a group process, there are some great written resources such as Visual Thinking by Nancy Margulies and Christine Valenza or Visual Meetings by David Sibbet. Hiring a professional graphic recorder/facilitator is another way to go.  Do a search in your area. Check out these 2 websites (Cheyenne and Tanya are colleagues of ours) to get a feel for what they have to offer!  

Raising the Village Question:

What's your Right-Brain idea to getting through the data fog? or running in research circles?

Be directional - and use the right tools.

The most detailed map in the world will not be very helpful if the details don't tell you what you need to know. Consider kayaking through the broken group islands (gorgeous!) - if you grabbed an area map from the local gas station - you'd be in big trouble as you try to navigate between Dodd and Turtle islands - and all the rocks in the middle during a turning tide.   On the other hand if you had a navigational chart,  chances are you'd be safe in a kayak but get lost on the car ride home.

Consider the plethora of choices in choosing maps and charts. Knowing what you are going to do with data and information is half the battle - are you driving, hiking, boating, star gazing or drilling for oil?

In a recent survey of workshop participants hoping to increase their knowledge and skills around using data for community planning, a question was asked about HOW they typically used information. The responses described:

1. Making decisions about program priorities and project directions
2. Writing funding applications (justifying the "ask")
3. Seeing trends - how the context in which we work changes
4. Creating an advocacy arsenal in order to effect change with policy makers
5. Informing best practices
6. Celebrating success

Each use is different. Not every piece of information you unearth will be applicable for every purpose.

If information is causing you to be dazed and confused, do a double check. Check your sources. Is it enough?  Sometimes it is a matter of adding additional information to create the whole picture.  Is the information relevant? Other times, you need to be honest and not force a piece of data into a puzzle it doesn't belong in.

Be clear from the start - what are you hoping to do with what you learn?
And..at the risk of getting data obsessed, consider an evaluation process of your data exploration.  Learning from your experiences of what works and what doesn't as you gather, make sense of and apply information can be very useful learning!

Fire-Starters– Ask Well Crafted Questions!

There are different theories, considerations and approaches to how to light a fire; how much kindling, how to pile the wood, when to add certain sized wood, how many matches to use... the many factors all depend on the purpose of the fire. Is it a low burning campfire, a rip roaring bonfire, or a 100 year old birthday cake?

The purpose of the fire, determines the crafting.

The same could be said when crafting questions. Questions are a key component in working together inivitatives.

When crafting questions there are many things to consider including emotion, tone, expected outcome, participants, how open/closed they need to be, the number of questions and what type of questions are really needed.


Let's simplify that by taking a look at the three village raising steps from last weeks blog and consider them through questions.


1. Gathering Questions (exploring awareness)
What are we talking about?
What meaning does that hold for us? What does it mean for our work?
What are we learning? From whom do we want/need to hear?

2. Sorting/Decision Making Questions: (exploring priorities and choices)
Why does this matter?
What’s most important?
What do we value? How will this impact our outcome?

3. Getting to Action Questions: (exploring ideas, goals and strengths)
What are we going to do about it?
What might happen if we...? What’s possible?
What are the next steps?

Be intentional with inquires, in order to inspire the kind of thought you aim to.
Flame on Village Fire-starters!

Village Raising Question: What's one of your favourite Gathering, Decision Making or Action question?

Tackling Mountains of Data

Faced with a mountain of information, one can feel compelled to climb towards the top - seeking clarity of vision at higher elevations. Or, conversely, one can also feel overwhelmed in the shadow of knowledge and sink in a quagmire of muck at the base.

Author Judi Adler wrote;
"Champions know there are no shortcuts to the top. They climb the mountain one step at a time. They have no use for helicopters!"

One step at a time. Faced with volumes of information - whether it be statistics, research, evaluation reports or experience - figuring out the first step is often the trickiest.

This is the time to think simple.

Tips to keep it simple during the early forays into making sense of data is the visual presentation of the information.

1. Get to the point - don't hide the key pieces of information with EVERYTHING available!


2. Pick the right format - think about how numbers, columns, pie charts, colours, maps and pictures can make information easier to digest


3. Keep it simple (we said that already!). With complicated information, make the layout or presentation clean and free of extra frills and clutter.

Once the information is shared, take it apart! Deconstructing complex information doesn't "dummy it down," it allows people to get there heads wrapped around it bit by bit. Community change efforts have a lot of variables. Taking it all in at once runs the risk extreme and total confusion.

One visual and fun way to deconstruct and simplify is by separating all the information at hand on post-it notes or index cards. By breaking down the complexity into bite sized pieces, you can clump them in a variety of ways, sort, re-sort, theme and rearrange. By doing so, people engaged in the work can become active in their roles as meaning makers. They can see information along side other concepts that are important for context. They can make connections that weren't obvious to them (or anyone) when the information was kept in it's original package - whether it be a number, chart, map or story. They can also, visually, connect the single units of information and re-construct the information. This time, however, the familiarity with the information will avoid confusion.

Do your group a favour and help them learn and apply new information by sharing it with them in ways that supports their meaning making journey. Simply, take the first step together (and then another)!

Village Raising Question:

What's your first simple step towards understanding your data?

How do you support a groups meaning making journey?

Data Fog

. One of the passages from our book, more than any other, captures the feeling of collaborative inquiry.

Sleeves rolled up, furrowed brows, slumped shoulders, a heaviness in the air…Weighted down with an all-consuming sense of responsibility, everyone involved was focused, intense, and determined to wade through the fog and confusion…. The overwhelming task before them was to make sense of data, agree on key issues and make a plan.

Sound familiar? 

While we know that it is important to make plans and decisions based on good information, it can feel more like a journey through pea-soup fog. Finding a process to guide a group through the murky, complex world of data so that people emerge feeling informed and cohesive is the key.

Data helps us to give issues and opportunities colour and detail and depth. Data enables us to make new connections and informed decisions. In fact, true innovation emerges during this journey, even when what we don’t know still exceeds what we do. The journey demands risk taking, being open to getting it wrong, and a persistent inquisitive spirit.

Raising the Village will be focusing our blogs this month on getting through the data fog.

What are the essential elements of a group process that will lead to clarity (rather than spinning in circles, getting lost and disoriented)?

How can we avoid data becoming something to fear or defend against?

Can we actually have fun doing this too???

Then when we make it through… find clarity and meaning (having a good time along the way) – we stand on a precipice yet again.  This one is the gap between knowing and doing…but we’ll save that for a future set of blog posts.  :)

Take our challenge this month:

Think of an issue or opportunity that you are currently facing. Ask yourself:

What are some predictions you have about the situation?

What are some questions you need to ask?

What are some possibilities for learning that this situation presents?

What kind of data do you currently have access to that might shed some light on the topic?

Gather your answers and be ready to dive into the fog with us!