Recently I was in the role of meeting facilitator, something I hadn’t done for 1.5 years since prior to maternity leave. The group was new to me. The preparation time was narrow, based on a last-minute recruitment of my services. And the task was to hold a complex conversation amidst tricky group dynamics with ‘collaborative decision-making’ tools. I was feeling the tingle of anticipation.
The agenda was designed around the simplicity of picture-forming and proposal idea generation. The group was encouraged to lean in and trust the process. Round by round we explored dimensions of the issue, and then fossicked for ways to address each dimension through proposal ideas.
To begin with, the group was somewhat clunky, as expected. As we went on, the power of the round massaged the group-think into a deeper feeling state.
Elephants in the room were announced. Nuanced tensions were acknowledged. Black Hats were worn in their ready sharing of cautions and criticisms. All things that people often reel away from in group conversation, especially in a somewhat conflict-avoidant Australian cultural context.
But a subtle beauty lingered in the space as we traversed toward the session’s end. Each person’s face in their respective Zoom screen seemed to be gently settling as we continued to circle the round. Complexity was still present, the issue not ‘resolved’. But there was just a little more space to comprehend the issue. Especially helped by the presence of a skilled and nimble sociocratic secretary.
We ended by choosing ‘tuners’ to refine the raw data of proposal ideas, using the sociocratic election process. Having the group do such a process, after a big conversation, seemed edgy. But by the time we wrapped up the 3-word-each closing round – there’s always time for a closing round, even if each person shares one word – there was a sense of progress.
In reflection, especially after my having a good chunk of time away from holding such a living process, I could see that the subtle beauty was related to connection woven within the group. The simplicity of circle exerted a necessary regulation of loud voices and softly spoken ones into a warp and weft of complexity coherence(-ish).
In a world of mounting complexity, this feels like a meaningful muscle to tone – the powerful simplicity of circle.
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Erin Young liberates creative leaders from overwhelm and distraction, using nature-inspired principles to create balance, creativity and collaboration. She does so as a sociocracy consultant with The Sociocracy Consulting Group, and as a Human Potential life and leadership coach. Erin lives on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.
