Collaborative Thinking Experiences
Your shortcut to tackling challenging issues, together.
A facilitated process for coming together,
generating authentic interaction and breakthrough thinking.
“An innovative way of tackling questions
with all minds in the room.”
– Community Conversation Participant
You are meeting others to tackle challenging issues.
Have these roadblocks gotten in your way?
Unhelpful meeting dynamics
- A few voices dominate.
- Many are silent.
- Unproductive disagreements.
- Unresolved conflict.
Subtle frustrations
- Put-downs like “Hang on, I have a better idea”.
- Participants jump in mid-sentence, and derail the speaker’s train of thought.
Unclear outcomes
- Participants are not clear on what, if any, decisions have been made.
- Confusion about individual accountabilities.
How Collaborative Thinking Experiences can help
As experienced facilitators and leadership consultants, these roadblocks are familiar.
Imagine having 10 people in a meeting and three dominate the discussion. Only 30% of possible ideas might surface. If those three people spend most of their time arguing, that percentage might reduce even further, say to 10%.
Leaving 90% of possible ideas for tackling the challenging issues undiscovered.
Frustrated with that state of affairs, we started looking for ways to improve collaboration.
The discovery of Nancy Kline’s work on “Thinking Environments” was a breakthrough. It focuses attention on the one thing that is within our sphere of influence, even in the most challenging circumstances: how we relate to each other when we meet and talk.
The Collaborative Thinking Experiences process has been effectively used in all sorts of contexts – business, government, education, and community.
The impact of Collaborative Thinking Experiences – making progress on challenging topics
Authentic interaction and connection
- Enhanced teamwork, better equipped to truly collaborate
- Improved morale
- Greater engagement
Freed imagination
- Breakthrough thinking
- More ideas and options generated
- Fully human inspiration
How it works
1. Book an Information Session
Let’s arrange a call to get the ball rolling.
Discover how a Collaborative Thinking Experience may work in your specific context.
Plan for the issues to be addressed, the outcomes you seek, and what questions may help to get the desired outcomes.
2. We prepare and facilitate your Collaborative Thinking Experience
We design the program to work with your group and deliver the outcomes you seek.
You will be informed about each step of the way.
Professional facilitation on the day ensures everyone is able to contribute and to listen to all contributions.
3. Follow-up on the ideas and results generated
All ideas and outcomes generated will be documented and shared with you (and the participants).
We will debrief the event with you, to ensure your expectations have been met.
Participants’ feedback
Community Conversation Participant“Safety to express views and be heard.”
Community Conversation Participant“A new way of sharing ideas and listening to insights that you will not see in the ordinary work, family, or social environment.”
Collaborative Thinking Experience in Business Participant“We achieved in a few hours what usually would have taken us weeks.”
Community Conversation Participant“An environment built on trust where you can be candid about your views.”
Community Conversation Participant“Made to feel welcome.”
Social Cohesion Workshop Participant“Clear guidelines as to respectful participation and giving all participants time to speak.”
Proven Effectiveness – For Teams
Collaborative Thinking Experiences have been successfully used by teams at all levels in the private and public sector.
In the linked Video, John describes the impact of the use of just one element, “Rounds”, on a finance team in a large corporate client.
Proven Effectiveness – For Leaders in Community Organisations
Collaborative Thinking Experiences have been successfully used to bring leaders of community organisations together to grapple with questions of social cohesion and what they might be able to contribute in their sphere of influence.
Proven Effectiveness – For Community Members
Collaborative Thinking Experiences have been successfully used to bring community members together. Previously unknown to each other, they quickly develop a working trust and are able to start talking authentically about challenging questions.
Ideas for other settings
We are always looking to prove the effectiveness of Collaborative Thinking Experiences in different settings.
We would love to experiment with using Collaborative Thinking Experiences for:
- Schools (especially staff and senior years of high school)
- Families (especially where there may be strong differences of opinion)
- Groups of neighbours
- The political sphere
