What to do with 1.5 to 2 hours

[Larry Peterson]

Peggy you asked:
 
I'm intrigued with this approach as a very creative way of handling the
desire that often exists to hear what happened in the room.
 
Would you say more about this - what sparked the idea, how many were in
the fishbowl (half hour isn't a lot of time and with 200 people, I'm
imagining there were a fair number of sessions), what question did you
use to launch the fishbowl?
 
I'll describe the fishbowl process I used in a bit more detail.  As
suggested, this event was more "guided" than OST and this was also true
of the fishbowl.  It was not the Open Space Fishbowl that I described
earlier based on Andrew's and my experience in Australia.  The original
design included the fishbowl as one option but I thought it unlikely.
But given there were only 11 topic groups because some folks had left
after lunch and maybe 100 - 125 were left in the room.  Given the nature
of the meeting (information) and health care professionals in Ontario
(overwhelmed) this was not a surprise.  It did make it possible to
quickly put 12 chairs on risers (not in the centre of the room as I
would preferred).  I did create an empty chair, but it was soon filled.
Not at all ideal in terms of set up.  
 
I was in the fishbowl to initiate, model and guide some aspects of the
conversation - it was not completely self-organized.  The initial
question was, "What did you learn about telemedicine in your topic group
discussion?"  The first person to start speaking was an academic, who
initially "presented" to the room rather than engage others in the
circle. His body language was to orient toward the "audience".   After
he spoke I then asked if any others had discussions that related to the
ideas just presented.  That immediately got them telling about a point
or idea from their topic group and soon others picked up and a
conversation was happening.  The fishbowl participants looked at me or
each other and not the larger group and I modeled this with my body
language.  My back was to the larger group.  I said very little,
occasionally asked about a connection between ideas to keep the
conversation aspect going.  New ideas beyond just reporting emerged.
The larger group (according to my colleague Sharon King) was very much
engaged because it was not the usual "report back".  The CEO of the
sponsor organization said that when I announced what was coming he and
his VP exchanged looks.  However, he was surprised at what he learned
when the report led to some synthesis and new higher level questions.
Yes all of this happened in about a half-hour and when it was over, it
was over.
 
Hope this helps.
 
Larry
 
 
Larry Peterson
Associates in Transformation
Toronto, ON, Canada
416.653.4829
 
 <mailto:larry at spiritedorg.com> larry at spiritedorg.com  
 <http://www.spiritedorg.com> www.spiritedorg.com 
 

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