back to IssuesPosted

The Circle of Knowing – another way of opening space

Convenor: John Moore

Participants: Jill Hardwick, Karen Davis, Peggy Holman, Val Embree, Ros Crompton

Discussion:

The six of us spent the time exploring a new way of opening space. Based on traditional ways of generating dialogue, including the Wisdom Council, The Circle of Knowing provides a moderated entry point to dialogue. It also offers opportunities to take the group away from the circle and workshop specific issues that arise as the circle develops.

The Circle of Knowing is not concerned with DOING – only with BEING.

Each circle is developed in a context related to the group taking part. In this case we chose the context of leadership.

There are essentially three parts to the circle development:

In this round, each person chose a card from a large range of cards bearing single words. They then associated this with one of sixteen words arranged around the centre of the circle and spoke about the association, using a story or example from experience.

Gradually a pattern of cards emerged with some interconnections appearing quite quickly. We went round a second time and there was more energy in the second round than the first.

We have generally found this to be true in the demonstrations we have been doing in Melbourne over the past couple of months.

The second round is a dialogue around the issues that arise in the present – How is it now? – in the context chosen for the group. We spent a brief period in this arena before moving on to the third round.

In the third round we changed the cards for a new one containing brief phrases about becoming. We connected a phrase chosen at random (apparently) with one of the sixteen words in the ring we used in round 1. This time though we talked about how we choose to become in our leadership or how we will become.

We noticed a number of applications including visioning, as a warm up for more in depth dialogue or as part of an ongoing learning group practice.

We also noticed that the cards people pick up often connected directly (the same word or at least same sentiment) as someone had been voicing in the moments before the card was chosen. This has also happened often in other demonstrations).

This material will be made available as part of a workshop where participants will learn how to use the circle and then take away a set of the materials. A community of practice will develop around these early adopters so that we can fully explore how to use this material in a variety of settings.