Welcome

to the World Café

March 29, 2008

Café Conversations are an easy-to-use method

for creating a living network of collaborative dialogue

around questions that matter in service of the real work

CAFE MOVEMENTS

3 Rounds of Conversation at 3 Different Tables ~ 20 minutes each round

Large Group Collective Harvesting~ 30 minutes

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QuickTime™ and a decompressor

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QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Avril Orloff

Open Will

Open Heart

Open Mind

LISTENING 2: from outside

disconfirming [new] data

© 2004 C.O. Scharmer

Downloading habits of judgment

reconfirming old opinions & judgments

factual listening, noticing differences

LISTENING 3: from within

seeing through another person‘s eyesemotional connection

empathic listening

LISTENING 1: from habits

LISTENING 4: from Source

connecting to an emerging future whole; shift in identity and self

generative listening (from the future wanting to emerge)

Questions are intrinsically related to action, they spark and direct attention, perception, energy and effort…

Creativity requires asking genuine questions, those to which an answer is not already known.

Questions function as open-handed invitations to creativity, calling forth that which doesn’t yet exist.

-Marilee Goldberg Adams The Art of the Question

Questions for Focusing Collective Attention on Your Situation

• What question, if answered, could make the most difference to the future of (your specific situation)?

• What’s important to you about (your specific situation) and why do you care?

• What’s our intention here? What’s the deeper purpose (the big “why”) that is really worthy of our best effort?

• What would someone who had a very different set of beliefs than we do say about (your specific situation)?

http://www.theworldcafe.com/articles/aopq.pdf

Questions for Connecting Ideas and

Finding Deeper Insight • What’s taking shape?

What are you hearing underneath the variety of opinions being expressed?

• What’s in the center of the table?

• What’s emerging here for you? What new connections are you making?

• What had real meaning for you from what you’ve heard? What surprised you? What challenged you?

• What’s missing from this picture so far? What is it we’re not seeing? What do we need more clarity about?

http://www.theworldcafe.com/articles/aopq.pdf

Questions That Create Forward Movement

• What would it take to create change on this issue?

• What’s possible here and who cares? (rather than “What’s wrong here and who’s responsible?”)

• If our success was completely guaranteed, what bold steps might we choose?

• How can we support each other in taking the next steps? What unique contribution can we each make?

• What conversation, if begun today, could ripple out in a way that created new possibilities for the future of (your situation)?

http://www.theworldcafe.com/articles/aopq.pdf

Café Round 1:

What question, if answered, could make the greatest

difference to the future of the situation we’re exploring

here?

Café TravelingContinuing the Conversation

•Choose one host to stay

•Others travel to new and separate tables

•Hosts welcome new people to the table

•Wait for what’s next

Café Round 2:

If there was one thing that hasn’t yet been said but is needed in order to reach a

deeper level of understanding, what would

that be?

Café TravelingContinuing the Conversation

•Choose one host to stay

•Others travel to new and separate tables

•Hosts welcome new people to the table

•Wait for what’s next

Café Round 3:

What seed might we plant together today that would

make the most difference to the future of our situation?

Large Group Sharing

Based on your three rounds of conversation, what themes,

patterns and insights are emerging?

What were your important questions?

For resources and information see

www.theworldcafe.comThe images in this presentation are

sourced from the World Café Creative Commons. Please cite this source if you

use them in the future.

Thank You

Based on the work of Juanita Brown, David Isaacs and the World Café Community

Graphics by Sherrin Bennett and Nancy Margulies

Hosted by Donald Proffit, Northeast U.S. Region Steward 1700 Riverside Drive Trenton, NJ 08618 609-649-9280 proffitprojects@mac.com www.proffitprojects.com