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Introduction:
Sallyann Roth, co-founder of the Public Conversations Project,
describes the questions posed to dialogue participants before the
process begins. This helps people to get clear about the sorts of issues they would like to
discuss and what they hope to get out of it.
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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 ???).
Questions
Sallyann Roth
Family Therapist, Trainer, and Co-Founder of the Public Conversations Project,
in Watertown, Massachusetts
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IWe want people to be really
focused on what they want when they come. We ask them before a meeting all kinds
of questions that help them do that and it wouldn't be like the one I just said.
A sample question might be; what could happen in this meeting that would make
you feel that coming and spending your time here was quite a good thing? What
could happen in the meeting that would make you feel it was quite a waste of
time or even worse? What kinds of questions would you hope that people you
disagreed with on the issue would ask you, that would then enable you to speak
about things that you don't usually speak about in this conflictive context?
What are questions that you have for the people that are coming that you would
like a chance to ask that in ordinary circumstance you absolutely wouldn't, you
would be afraid to, or embarrassed to, or would be sure they wouldn't answer in
any genuine way?
So we get people to think about those kind of questions. ... And ultimately what
are some questions that you think the conversation we're about to say that could
address what you believe would start a generative conversation, that might move
the conversation forward ... We get everybody's questions ahead of time and we
distribute them, unattributed, but that's a very different process.
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