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Introduction:
Laura Chasin, director of the Public Conversations Project, talks about
collaborating with participants to improve the quality of dialogue groups. By interviewing
participants after the first session, she has found it easier to be receptive
to their needs and set an appopriate agenda.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Collaborative Design
Laura Chasin
Director of the Public Conversations Project, Watertown, Massachusetts
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But what we would do, you see, is we made them work.
We designed the
first session, and then we called them up and asked, "How did it go, what
was hard, what was important for you. What do you think the next step is?"
And then we would take their ideas and turn them into a structured sequenced
agenda. We've always called it a plan for our time and they would look at it. We
would say something about it and they would ok it. Then they would launch into
it and then we would call them up again, so it was a dance between them and us.
It was a sharing of responsibility for what happened, because we really didn't
know. This felt really like pioneering work, and going in with this sort of Zen.
I mean one of my favorite mantras, when I get feeling too over-responsible was I
think it was Thomas Crumb, who said that the correct attitude for the dispute
resolver was the attitude for the Zen warrior going into battle. The battle has
already happened and you've lost. It's all over, it's another way of getting
into this mindset of being receptive to the things that the people you are
serving, and facilitating are telling you what they need. And then being,
because you're not trying and have a lot of pre-conceived ideas, you're able to
access your spontaneity and creativity to build off their cues.
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