A recent experiment with online Circle Practice in a group that had never experienced it had interesting side effects. Some of them I haven’t yet fully measured. There was one interesting spark at the end — a manager requested that the next time we talk does not use the structure. Their reasoning — so that people can answer questions.
The following is a reflection inspired by the question, but has no relation to that person or their motivations.
Unstructured dialog can of course be useful. However, it can also be used to exert power. Those who are rhetorically skilled will almost always “win” over those who are not. A naturally extroverted person will beat an introvert hands down. When there is no space for ideas to fully ripen (boy is that phrase begging to be expounded upon), equality will be eroded.
The goal of structure is to protect those who don’t do well in a place without structure. When there is no structure, those with power who don’t actively work to monitor its use will dominate those without.
The fun part — when you have power you have no way of knowing the difference between those who are dominated and those who are choosing to follow.
And so, circle practice, especially when done well, will make folks who have power, especially those who aren’t used to checking it, uncomfortable. And they won’t know why.
Not to say this particular individual was having those thoughts — I also had no way as facilitator to check into why they were asking for the change as we were out of time.
Maybe I will later on!
P.S. Some elements I practiced with this time around (we used Zoom and google docs):
- Gently discouraging folks from using the “raise hand” feature until no hands were raised
- Summarizing everything that is said in a google doc that everyone can see
- Allowing silence to pervade and choosing not to fill it
- Making it clear whose turn it is to speak and only focusing on them
- Discouraging use of chat by saying I will only record what I hear so folks can put all their attention on the person speaking