in the middle of the group. He states his issue, for example: “I
want to get out of the office and visit more companies.” Next he
contracts with the group to define their role. (They are not there
to fix his problem.) In this case, he might contract with them to
help him get a clearer idea of why he’s not seeing more companies.
The questioning begins, following these simple rules:- The same person cannot ask two questions in a row.
- All questions must be related to the prior one.
- All questions should be open-ended (not “yes” or “no”
answers).
An opening question might be, “Tell us about your travel pat-
terns now.”To which the man might respond, “I’m traveling about once
per month, seeing about two companies.”
Next question (from different person): “Have you attended
many industry conferences?”
Facilitator: “DING! You’ve just asked a leading question. Your
question implies an answer: If you went to more conferences, you
could see more companies. The point of this inquiry exercise is to
avoid subtle suggestions for solutions and instead truly inquire into
the person’s thinking.”
When safety is an issue, as in brainstorming, a circle is often
the ideal arrangement of chairs or seating. The circle is a symbol
of equality. Everyone can see everyone else, and there is no power
difference, such as implied by the “head” of the table.
Groups that are interested in establishing safety usually start a
meeting with some sort of check-in, a ritual that allows members
to get “present,” to leave the stresses of the day behind—and,
importantly, to leave as many judgments as possible from the day
behind. The Mankind Project uses a nice formula: PIE. This acro-
nym stands for:Guidelines for Safety 15314-25 ware 153 1/19/01, 1:14 PM