Lou Feedback

Viewing Report

Just watched the whole circle. Great to see it. Congrats to you for organizing and holding it. Look forward to doing these with you or facilitating on my own.

Here are my notes:

Nice that you are wearing the Empathy Tent t-shirt. Good branding for creating and reinforcing the organizational identity.

Nice stating the purpose of the EC. Orients people to understanding each other, not just expressing themselves or winning arguments.

Good idea to have intros (name, where from, political leanings).

• Let’s people get started and settled in with something simple that they know.

• Helps create trust by understanding who is in the circle and gives people a sense of each other.

Nice explanation of the EC process.

• Clear, and not too much information.

• Good that you sent everyone a handout before the circle.

• I wonder how many of them read it?

• Nice to review from the handout so they remember it and see the value of it’s content.

The question “how can we bridge the political divide?”

• is a good question,

• but I think a better one is

• “What would you like to be most understood for in the area of politics?”

• “What do you feel is most mis-understood about your political view?”

I think this would be easier for people to speak to.

In trying to help participants that are having difficulty following the process, I think it might be helpful for the facilitator to

• articulate the difference between “normal conversation” where people ask each other questions and respond to what each other is saying,

• and the EC process where what we are doing is creating a structured space for people to express their views and be heard, and to see what learning comes from that.

This might need to be reiterated several times during the circle.

at 24 min. you might have reiterated the question that was given to the circle since he doesn’t seem to know what to talk about. I think this could have been helpful several times during the circle. It’s easy for the participants to loose the thread of the question.

I think instead of saying

• “Who do you want to speak to?”,

• saying “Who do you want to reflect you back?"

is a way to decrease the idea that people are responding back and forth to each other in an “argument” which happened a lot in this circle.

I also think that requiring people to select someone that hasn’t spoken yet this round (and not allowing people to go back and forth to each other) helps

• increase participation,

• enforces more mutuality, and

• reduces back and forth responding (like questioning each other).

Another thing is I think we should make it clear that the speaker “asks” someone in the circle to reflect them back, and that that person needs to agree to be the reflector. (???)

• The person can say no if they don’t feel up to reflecting for whatever reason (don’t feel ready, emotional difficulty, worried about being triggered, etc.).

• I think this is an important aspect of showing respect and that this is a mutual process. I

also think that the facilitator can take over reflecting or facilitate passing that role to a different person if they think the reflector is getting too triggered to continue reflecting.

at 46:20 - again, I think if the group is falling into a lot of asking questions of each other

• I would remind them of the question in the circle and encourage expression around that.

• And if speakers have to pick someone who hasn’t listened yet this round, this will reduce back and forth question asking and responding.

• The facilitator can also reiterate the desire to include everyone in the circle in the speaking and listening.

I very much like the final round of remarks at the close of the circle. I think an interesting question to try would be

“How do you feel and what did you lean that is new”

I am not sure about the facilitator reflecting back the participants closing remarks.

This felt intrusive to me. I wonder how the participants felt supported by it.

I think it was a good circle that brought up some charged stuff that got heard.

I think there was too much back and forth and not enough mutuality in participation.

While all expressed positive feelings at the end, I wonder if the ones who participated less would have liked to participate more.

I would have.

Hope this is helpful. Happy to discuss any and all of this.

Lou