Musings from Frances Baldwin, March 2021
Key notion: “inquiry is action.” Sometimes the need to move to some type of decision, implication or application eclipses the possibility for depth, breadth, and fresh meaning. Given time and space, more informed and useful options may become visible.

Deeper insights, networking and linking ideas differentiate World Café Conversations from other types of group dialogue.  The whole idea is to pause, inquire, be curious and make meaning.   We learn from each other’s experience and perspectives.  When we find common threads and new insights, new figures emerge from that center; a fresh shared field of consciousness that we create as we talk and think together.  Then we have new intelligence, a capacity to know together in this moment.  We have planted seeds to feed and fuel whatever mental process or physical actions we choose.  Something inside of us changes “the us.” We call this phenomenon the magic in the middle, a phrase introduced and mastered by Finn Voldtofte one of our great teachers. Finn’s depth of understanding and ability to name and teach made this process reliable, repeatable, and intentional for a wide range of circumstances.

The primary vehicle for this process is the Cafe Principles applied with Café Etiquette.  The heart of the principles from where I sit is how we use our questions.   When we create an anchoring, deep probing question, it is compelling; we hear it we feel it and we want to get inside of it; discover all that it has to offer; AND we get to do that in unison with others; expanding our field of knowledge.  We must then allow this compelling question that we have worked to create, to do its work.  The magic described above happens because, ideally, participants get the benefit of sharing such questions with at least a dozen people. All those perspectives and the opportunity to explore become a part of everyone’s experience.  That is a lot to ponder and play with…. imagine. We get the benefit of the thought process (and the resulting wisdom) of multiple other people to integrate into our own thinking.  What we gain is the unique outcome of a World Café Conversation.

So, we must begin to ponder the story we want to create through our questions; determining how many questions; the flow; how many rounds for each question.  There are the over-arching penetrating questions that make us think beyond what we already know, individually and collectively Then there are the making more meaning questions that may follow.  And the finally the “so what” questions…. how might we use what is gleaned from the total conversation in the interest of our original purpose?  Powerful questions stay with us, beyond the boundary of the conversation.

If we are true to the concept of The World Cafe, we may have one question; we may have one question that we repeat for multiple rounds.  That repeat question may be the first, second, or third question, again based upon purpose and context.  When we find ourselves locked into the same number of questions each time we design and host a café we have put form over function and lost the potential of the concept. We must continue to be creative and daring in our questioning. 

Purpose and context drive every decision:  the design, the questions, the rounds, the harvest. Purpose and context separate that “favorite question that we carry around” and “it worked so beautifully last year in New York,” from what is meaningful and useful.

I look forward to responses from the field.

Note from Frances: The above are simply “musings”: my wondering about what others think about using fewer questions… I am passionate about this but my intention is not to “own” this dilemma – rather, to stimulate thinking and experimentation toward a deeper inquiry among us all.

Please add your thoughts via the comments field below!