The Circle
IF YOU:
LISTEN WITH RESPECT...
UNDERSTANDING,
TRUST,
LEARNING,
A NEW PERSPECTIVE
GROWING,
RESOLVING
ADAPTING
WILL RESULT.
Grounding
- Establishes a model for listening with respect, A knowing that each person will be heard.
- Establishes a verbal territory for each participant, a sense of potential equity
- Requires access to both the left and the right brain, engaging the “whole brain.
- Allows apprehensions and hopes for the meeting to be expressed.
- Allows participants to express hidden agendas (like leaving early, a flat tire, a sickness, etc.)
- Brings people into the “here and now”
- Provides initial information to the facilitator.
Worst / Best / Possibility
Worst Outcomes: These are feared future outcomes, often based on past experience, with a presently experienced emotion and physical reaction. When people believe them, they affect their perceptions, beliefs, values and strategies. They tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies when strongly held.
Best Outcomes: These are hoped for future outcomes, sometimes not previously experienced, but intensely imagined, with a presently experienced emotion and physical response. When people believe them, they affect their perceptions, beliefs, values and strategies. They tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies when strongly held.
Possibility Thinking: An acknowledgment that both worst and best outcomes are present and inherent in each moment, up to, and often after the event. This balanced view allows the movement toward desired outcomes.
Life-long Learning
- What is the situation or experience?
- How do you feel about it?
- What did you learn that will…
- make you successful?
- resolve the conflict?
- resolve the impasse?
- etc.?
A Consensus Process
- What is the situation? How do I feel about it?
- What are my worst possible outcomes of the situation?
- What are my best possible outcomes of the situation?
- What beliefs, behaviors, strategies, and actions will foster my best possible outcomes?
Seeking Richness
- What are two things I am grateful for?
- What are two things I am excited about?
- What are two things I enjoy?
- Who do I love? Who loves me?
- What is the richness in my life?
(Answer these questions at least once a day for a month and you will find a new level of appreciation of life.)
