Hosting Meaningful Conversation
Connecting with others, growing community and community knowledge, discovering solutions and drawing out innovation require good and sometimes difficult but meaningful conversation. In order to get beyond gossip and chatter, to get to the point of holding a meaningful conversation, we must first host ourselves and then host the whole group.
“Hosting is an emerging set of practices for facilitating group conversations of all sizes, supported by principles that: maximize collective intelligence; welcome and listen to diverse viewpoints; maximize participation and civility; and transform conflict into creative cooperation.” - Upper Arlington Art of Hosting Community of Practice
The act of hosting goes beyond traditional meeting facilitation because it requires that the host accept responsibility for providing an environment where all of the above listed principles may flourish. Hosting requires the development of trust, a commitment to equality for all participants and a willingness to learn from one another and from the group at large. Andrew Miller Consulting believes that it is all learning.
“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.” – Mortimer Adler
Structure of a Hosted Conversation
When we work together to host meaningful conversations there are certain steps that must be taken. A successfully hosted conversation does not happen effortlessly and the following list speaks to the work necessary for success.
- Initial calling group meeting to develop purpose and calling question
- Framing and flow design for the conversation event
- Design of the physical space to be used for the conversation event
- Invitation to participants using the calling question
- Hosting of the conversation which includes on the fly modifications as are appropriate
- Harvesting of the conversation
- Release of the harvest out to the participant group
- Post conversation actions developed from the conversation event
- Evaluation for possible followup conversations
The Art of Hosting social technologies employed by Andrew Miller Consulting scale well between very small groups all the way up to conversations of hundreds of participants at a single time. We will work with you to design a hosted conversation scaled appropriately for your intended participation group.
What a Hosted Conversation Delivers
A successful hosted conversation delivers a sense of ownership over the purpose for the participants, a new sense of community, innovative solutions and ideas for the organization, expanded community intelligence and a harvest of all of the shared community knowledge.
What this means for your organization is an opportunity to get the most out of the human resources you already have available to you and to expand that base through your supporters network.
Are you ready to host a meaningful conversation? Contact Andrew Miller Consulting today to get started.
For more information on the Art of Hosting community of practice take a look at the website ArtOfHosting.org here.
