You know the feeling of a conversation. You’re with at least one other person, sharing your thoughts, ideas and feelings about a topic, and the others are doing the same. Sometimes a conversation is easy and flowing; other times, keeping track of what’s happening is hard. Sometimes the conversation is a hard-to-have conversation.

I bet you also know what it feels like when a conversation is lopsided when one person is doing most of the talking. Perhaps you practice noticing when you are doing most of the talking, pulling back, and making more space for others. This is what we do: we share and make room for others in the conversation to share, too. A conversation is easy to have with a few people, but what does it look and feel like with a large group? What shape does a community conversation take?

The invitation + the agenda

Earlier this year, some friends invited me to join them at an event described as a community conversation—my kind of language—about transit in our city. Here’s part of the invitation:

From the agenda included with the invitation, I had a hunch that the event would not involve conversation. I chose to attend for two reasons: 1) to spend time with friends and 2) to check my assumption about no conversation.

Between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm, the agenda for the meeting looked like this:

9:00 am—Arrival and Networking
9:20 am—Welcome
9:30 to 10:30 am— Q and A, The State of Edmonton Transit
10:45 to 11:45 am— Q and A, National Trends in Public Transit
12:00 to 12:45 pm—Lunch
12:45 to 2:00 pm—Keynote
2:00 to 2:30 pm—Virtual Keynote
2:30 to 3:30 pm—Facilitated Breakout Rooms
3:30 to 4:00 pm—Next Steps

Listening is an essential ingredient of conversation, but if only one party is listening, it’s not conversation. This is why keynotes or presentations with some question-and-answer time are not conversation. A panel of presenters talking among themselves (even in response to questions from the audience) is, at best, an audience watching a few people in conversation. In the above agenda, the two morning Q and A sessions were consistent with a predictable pattern: lengthy presentations followed by some time for audience questions.

86% of the “conversation” was designed for us to sit and listen to a speaker, not make contact or connect with each other, let alone have a conversation.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines conversation as “talk between two or more people in which thoughts, feelings, and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information are exchanged.” A conversation is not one-way; it is not a conversation if people are not involved. We are not having a conversation when one or a few people are speaking at the front of the room, and one hundred people are listening.

On the day in question, 86% of our time was allocated for passive listening to designated speakers. 14% of our time was provided for conversation. There are three things to note about the design for this gathering:

Mingle time is not topic time. Time to mingle upon arrival and over lunch was time for people to chat about any topic, not the subject of the day. It is essential to make space for this informal connection time, but on this day, this time was not designed to be purposeful toward the day’s objective. (Even factoring in mingle time, 75% of the day was designated for people to sit and listen.)
19% of Q and A time was Q and A time. 81% of the designated Q and A time was one-way information dissemination from three experts to a passive audience (43 of 60 minutes, 49 of 60 minutes and 66 of 75 minutes). 37 of 195 minutes of the Q and A time were made for questions.
Q and A is not conversation. In the 37 minutes available for questions from the audience, most of the audience sits and listens to the questions and answers. The experience for most attendees is listening to three people speak, then snippets from a handful of others.

Invitation is a promise; design is how to deliver

The invitation made a promise when it used the words “community conversation learning” to describe how participants would explore the challenges and opportunities for transit in our city. The agenda reveals a different purpose for the meeting: to hear about a handful of people’s thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for transit in our city. The agenda also reveals an expectation that the audience will listen and do what they are told, all under the guise of taking action. The agenda revealed the agenda, and it was not conversation.

The promise embedded in the invitation read like this:

The goal to get organized and build a better transit system for all was disabled because when we sat to listen to a handful of people, we were not in conversation, a necessary ingredient to getting organized—unless we agree to passively let others organize us. The design we choose for any gathering delivers on the spirit of the invitation, no matter what the words relay.

The design of a gathering reveals our motivation as designers. For example, if I invite you over for a shared community meal, I would be at odds with my invitation if I prepared and served an elaborate meal and made no room for your contributions. The people who arrive have brought appetizers, drinks, salads, homemade buns, casseroles, and favourite desserts and a reasonable expectation that they’d choose what to eat from the range on offer. Everyone has the opportunity to try what everyone else has contributed.

“The design of a gathering reveals our motivation as designers.”

To be consistent with my invitation, I need to set the table with places for various contributions to be on display, including those I don’t expect. Before people arrive, I decide what structure will likely be helpful: How much table space is needed? Does it make sense to have clear areas for appetizers, main courses and desserts, or mix it all together? Is special signage needed to alert people with allergies? To make my invitation more robust, I may include a theme in my invitation (food that you would love to eat on a bus) to provide some guidance.

The bottom line is this: as I design what will happen when people gather, I don’t make room for others' contributions when I don’t make room for those contributions. When we gathered to explore transit, we sat to listen to a handful of people’s ideas, some from out of town, with little opportunity for us to learn from each other. We were not a community learning. We were a room of individuals receiving information we could have received from our screens at home.

Organized by the few

When we gather to talk about improving our cities, communities, and neighbourhoods, and we are not talking to each other, we are not having a conversation. If we are not having conversations, we are not organizing; we are being organized. We may gain new information from the speakers but are not organizing ourselves. We are offering ourselves to be organized by the few. This is different from action at the scale promised in the invitation.

When we gather at the same place at the same time, we should do what we can only do when at the same place at the same time: get to know each other, explore our experiences, figure out what we’d like to do and why, and how we’d like to work together. Instead, we left the gathering with videos of what we’ve already seen, limited new connections with new people, and few conversations about what is possible.

The agenda revealed the agenda: the experts are few—and not the citizens of the city. Our job was to jump up and raise our voices to cheer those experts on. The agenda was not about conversation or community but being organized to raise the few above the rest.

“We are not having a conversation when one or a few people are speaking and one hundred are listening.”

An alternate design

To take wise action as a group, it is imperative that we make ourselves available to the expertise in the room. A community in conversation with itself, prepared to learn about itself, makes sure that the expertise of many is activated.

Here’s an alternate design that delivers on the promise of the invitation: to make a citizen-based movement to improve public transit in Edmonton.

Before you arrive (message to participants)

Instead of spending our time listening to a handful of people, we’d like to make room for us all to do the talking when we meet. To get us ready, we have four five-minute videos for you to explore:

A long-time transit user describes the good and bad about transit in Edmonton
A brand-new transit user describes the good and bad about transit in Edmonton
An Edmonton transit planner lays out where we’ve been and where we’re going
An outsider provides insight into transit trends in other cities

Please take 20 minutes before we gather to watch these videos. They’ll help us have a common starting point for a day of organizing a better transit system in Edmonton.

The setting

We are in a room that has lots of windows and daylight. The air quality is good. There are moveable tables and chairs throughout the room. The room looks ready for people to get to work:

There is no obvious front of the room
A big question to guide the day is on the wall: What is the future we imagine for transit in Edmonton?
The agenda and ground rules for the day are on the wall
Tables are set with papers, markers and little buses (no more than four places to sit)
A place on the wall to organize the topics we’d like to explore
Spaces on the walls ready to put people’s work on display
A secure place to the side for people to put down their belongings
A table with refreshments and food
A table is off to the side for people to make themselves a name tag (that’s somehow bus related)

1. Arrival and mingling (8:30 am)

As people arrive, a handful of convenors welcome people at the door. (They are not sitting behind a table.) The welcome includes pointing out where they can put their belongings, find refreshments, when we’ll start, and how the warm-up activity works. The warm-up activity invites people to start meeting people they don’t yet know and bump into people they do know. Since we’re gathering to talk about transit, a place on the wall or on a big pinboard to capture people’s immediate thoughts about Edmonton transit is an excellent place to start.

What I love about transit in Edmonton is…
A dream I have for transit in Edmonton is…

2. Welcome (9:00 am)

Someone finds a place in the room where most people can see them and provides some welcoming remarks. This may involve a handful of people as appropriate. Essential items:

A sincere land acknowledgement
The purpose of the day
What to expect over the course of the day
Ground rules
Housekeeping (make a name tag, if you need help, talk to so-and-so…)
Let’s get started

(Remember, there is no obvious front of the room.)

3. Let’s find out what matters (9:10 am)

A series of conversations in small groups of no more than four people, with people moving around the room for each conversation, is a good way for people to meet each other and continue to warm up for the main event: discerning what wise action in Edmonton could look and feel like. I imagine four rounds:

What brought you here today? (Round one, with a first group)
What brought you here today? (Round two, with new people)
What do you love about transit? (Round three, with new people)
What dreams do you have for transit in Edmonton? (Round four, with new people)

While people work at their tables, they write and doodle illustrations of what they are saying. After each round of conversation, the pages are placed on the wall for the whole room to see.

4. What is possible for transit in Edmonton? (10:30 am)

After meeting a variety of people and exploring the many reasons why transit is important to a variety of people in the room, we shift our attention and get practical about what is possible. With a big question to provide focus (What is possible for transit in Edmonton?), participants identify topics they’d like to explore—and host each other in conversation. On a wall where everyone can see, we build an agenda for the next few hours. Imagine a conference schedule with concurrent sessions made on the spot.

With our agenda made, participants zip off to host and participate in the conversations that energize them. While they work, participants record their insights as precisely as possible, rooted in an improvement inquiry that focuses on naming the desired improvement, the needed action, expected results, and how the results would be recognized. The record of their work serves as a “harvest” for immediate or future use. (Passersby can look to decide if they’d like to jump into a conversation or move to another. After the gathering, the harvest serves as documentation for future reference.)

5. So what and now what? (2:00 pm)

After a few hours of working, it is important to pause as a group and notice why the insights and ideas that take hold matter. What do we stand to gain if these possibilities come to pass? What’s at stake if we don’t work to make them happen? How can we organize ourselves to create the conditions for the possibilities to take root? Who do we need to be?

A process of discernment takes place in small and large groups to make meaning of the conversations that have taken place and identify concrete next steps.

6. Closing (3:30 -4:00pm)

Before departing, participants step back to look at the day’s work in silence. There are two levels of discernment: a private commitment each participant makes to themselves and a public indication of action they’d like to take with others, if any. They write their insights down on cards with the following prompts:

One action I will take is ____________. (Anonymous)
I want to work with others on _____________. (Public)

Before getting out of their chairs to leave these cards out in the open, there’s a last round of voices in the room, people who articulate:

The value of having spent my time here today was _________.
One thing that would have made the day better is ___________.

As they did when they arrived, participants leave the threads that will continue to weave them together in their work to do together. What will become apparent:

People who want to continue to work with each other
People who want to work on new projects
People who want to work behind the scenes
People who want to work in public
People who want to contribute a lot
People who want to contribute a little
People who want to host the next gathering

After the gathering

After the gathering, the hosts will photograph and document the participants’ work. A simple photographic record can serve as an adequate harvest of the gathering as a photo gallery. If desired, a more official record can be made to document the exploration and any decisions made.

Since we last saw each other (a message to participants)

Since we last saw each other on [such and such a date], we took photographs of all our work. Here’s a link to the photo album. Take a moment to explore. You’ll find some reminders of the conversations you participated in, and you’ll be able to get caught up on what happened in others’ conversations, too.

As a reminder, at the end of our day together, we agreed on the following next steps…

A community in conversation is a movement

Even when we share an objective, like improving transit in Edmonton, we only organize together if we are in conversation. When we are not in the push and pull of conversation, wrestling with the action we feel we need to take, we are being organized, passive participants in the status quo doing others’ bidding. In doing so, we are avoiding the hard work of working together. We avoid the hard work of changing while saying we want change to happen.

I use a simple question as a quick and helpful test to see if we are avoiding working together: Are we doing what we can only do when we meet at the same place at the same time? Sitting and listening to a handful of speakers can be done in our living rooms, at our desks, kitchen tables, or on airplanes, and buses. Most speakers have a series of easily accessible options for us to hear their voices on social media. What is unique when we’re in a room together, online or in person, is us.

Let’s meet.

Let’s connect.

Let’s converse.

Let’s organize ourselves for ourselves.

Reflection

Take a moment to ponder a recent time you attended an event with a guest speaker… What was your level of comfort or discomfort with sitting back and listening to others?
Take a moment to ponder a recent time you attended an event where you were asked to interact with other people… What was your level of comfort or discomfort with being in conversation with other people?
What is a conversation you’d love to roll up your sleeves and have with your neighbours, family, co-workers, or community?

Community Learning