Intentional Society: Distilling transformative magic
We brought back the T-Group Fishbowl once again, and three months later the format still worked its magic for us. We even did two separate fishbowls simultaneously (using "hide non-video participants" as a replacement for "Spotlight", it's not quite as smooth but gets the job done) to similar rave reviews. Thus this week I'm trying to learn from and incorporate/spread some of that transformational magic into other practices.
The ingredients in this special sauce include:
- sharing personal experiences with a group
- the "audience" effect
- getting and giving individual observational feedback
- pregame intention setting
- group-level flow/interaction management
I'm thinking the first 3 were all significant: The power of vulnerability to engender heartfelt connection is huge all by itself, and IS members (supported by IS culture) were fantastic at going to deep and meaningful places. Then, some people were enlivened by the hidden observers, while others noted some anxious awareness — either way that seemed to raise the energy. And to hear someone's attentive feedback re what they observed about you (and your relating to the group), well I know the least about what happened in all the dyad breakouts but I suspect that whatever one's "thing to watch" is, that external-observer loop can be perspectivally powerful. (I think we see that we're usually overly-harsh critics of ourselves, and that what people actually notice about us can be powerfully validating.)
Aha, this links back to feedback that doesn't feel like feedback, in the ways that numbers 3 and 1 are really very alike. I think we got some great tastes of that quality last week, and are set up to easefully try some more. Observations and feelings and stories — the core of Circling and related practices — they deliver the good parts of feedback without the "I need you to change for me" linkage. When we own our inner experience cleanly, that leaves the other person free to own theirs without defending against ours.
What usually holds us back from sharing our experience of another person? What if it couldn't go wrong? Can we good at building that into our cultural norms and expectations (and results too, of course)? I sense huge potential here, though that's as far as my brain gets tonight. More soon hopefully.
Cheers,
James