intimacy

Seating while Eating at Meetings

Monday, September 10th, 2018 by Adrian Segar

Seating while Eating at Meetings: Picture of Jesus with the Eucharist at the Last Supper by Juan de Juanes, Public DomainIt’s no Comedians in Cars getting Coffee, but here’s my draft script for Seating while Eating at Meetings. Let’s start with…

Three criteria for good seating while eating

  1. Maximal intimacy. This is the big one. When I’m eating at a meeting I want to, well, meet people. I can eat alone any time, thank you very much. And if I want to converse with one or two other people, just about any seating configuration will work. But if I’m with five best friends, I want to be able to communicate with them without shouting or straining to hear them. And when banqueting strangers surround me, I’d like to maximize the number of new people I can effectively meet.
  2. Lack of distractions. I can’t meet other people when our conversation is drowned out by emcees, dinner speakers, or (aargh!) “mood” music. Or when a sponsor is displaying a promo movie on every wall in the room.
  3. Comfort. Please don’t make me sit on a cheap plastic chair or a wooden bench with no back support for an extended period while I nosh. It’s cruel and unusual punishment. (Meeting planners usually get this one right.) And if it’s too hot or cold, I’ll be miserable. If we’re going to be dining outside in the Sahara or the Arctic (cool!), let me know in advance so I can dress appropriately.

OK, got that? It’s time for a couple of specific suggestions.

Are you Tortured by Nights of the Round Table?
I am. The above link goes into detail, but from my audiologist-swears-my-hearing’s-normal-but-I-don’t-think-so perspective, traditional large rounds for seated meals — a staple of every meeting planner’s banquet design — conflict with criterion #1.

Typically, meals are served at 60″ rounds (eight seats per table), 66″ rounds (nine seats per table), or 72″ rounds (ten seats per table). I start having a hard time hearing everyone at 60″ rounds, and the larger sizes pretty much relegate me to talking with the two people on either side of me (and that’s assuming the table is full — often not the case with unassigned seating.)

If you’re going to use rounds, in my view, smaller ones are better. The problem is that many venues don’t stock them, so you may have to pay extra to use them. Nevertheless, consider using 54″ rounds (7 – 8 seats), 48″ rounds (6 seats), [or even 36″ rounds (4 seats) if your meal service isn’t super-formal]. Everyone is likely to be able to converse with everyone else at the table and maximal intimacy is yours!

The Fable of the Communal Table
Until relatively recently, most public dining occurred communally because only the rich could afford private dining rooms and there were far more poor folks around. Then we got hoity-toity and invented restaurants and conferences.

About ten years ago, communal tables started creeping back into restaurants. Some argued that this trend met a desire to return to a dining environment with greater “community”. The more cynical noted that establishments could now cram more people in the same space by seating them at long rectangular tables next to strangers.

While I think communal tables are great if they’re an integral part of an authentic cultural meal where dining involves lots of moving about — e.g. as pictured below, the deliciously messy outdoor calçotada I enjoyed in Catalonia last year — at traditional conferences they are poor places to converse with others.

So, if you’re using rectangular tables, don’t do this:

Instead, do this:

But wait, there’s more…
Sorry, I’ll admit that this is not everything you need to know about seating while eating at meetings. But it’s a start, and, like Jude, you can make it better. Please feel free to add your contributions in a comment below.

Picture of Jesus with the Eucharist at the Last Supper by Juan de Juanes – [2], Public Domain, Link
calçotada image by David Benitez

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Posted in Event design | 1 Comment »

Dear Adrian — How does group size impact process design?

Monday, October 31st, 2016 by Adrian Segar

group size impact process design: A photograph of a busy highway full of traffic. The message "GOT A QUESTION? ASK ADRIAN!" flashes on an overhead sign.

How does group size impact process design?

Another issue of an occasional series—Dear Adrian—in which I answer questions about event design, elementary particle physics, solar hot water systems, facilitation, and anything else I might conceivably know something about. If you have a question you’d like me to answer, please contact me (don’t worry, I won’t publish anything without your permission).

Here’s a great question from Australian facilitator, trainer, and coach Steve Rohan-Jones about … The Three Questions! (Check out the link if you aren’t already familiar with The Three Questions. Otherwise, what you are about to read won’t make much sense.)

Good morning from Canberra, Adrian,

I have just read through The Power of Participation over one year after I received a signed copy from you!

In short, I have a question about The Three Questions. I understand the process both in singular and multiple form (combined with round tables). From my reading, The Three Questions appears to take some time (based on the amount of participants) with only one person speaking. This appears at odds with the aim to get people engaged in conversation.

I would also think – not a question just an observation – that group of 6 would be better. This would speed up the set piece of one person speaking and others listening, reduce the need for breaks and keep the energy going early in the day.

Can you clarify my understanding of The Three Questions?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers
Steve Rohan-Jones
O2C Pty Ltd

Steve, I like your question. It highlights a key tension inherent in group process design: the tension between intimacy (going deep with a few) and discovery (uncovering the possibilities of the many). How does group size impact process design? Let’s explore this in more detail.

Valuable meeting outcomes

When people are meeting for a shared purpose, some of the potentially valuable outcomes include:

  1. Learning about each other.
  2. Being and feeling heard.
  3. Sharing with each other.
  4. Learning from each other.

The Three Questions focuses on #1, #2, and #3. I use it at the start of an event because we can’t learn effectively from our peers (#4) until we:

  • have learned what they might have to offer (#1);
  • feel safe sharing with them (#2); and
  • have each had an opportunity to share our expertise and experience (#3).

Because each person gets the same amount of time to share their answers to The Three Questions with a group, the time needed to run the process is proportional to the group’s size. [I’m neglecting here the few minutes needed to a) explain the process and b) provide one or two short breaks for large groups.] In practice, I’ve found this restricts the maximum effective size of a single Three Questions group to 60 people. What if more than 60 people are present? Then you divide them into smaller groups and run multiple simultaneous The Three Questions sessions.

Even if we have 60 people or fewer, we may still decide to divide our group into several smaller groups and run multiple simultaneous sessions. Typically we’ll do this when time is a constraint.

For example, next month I’m leading a two-hour, ~200 person, participation techniques workshop. To cover multiple core techniques in two hours with this many participants, I will give them just a taste of The Three Questions by running 30+ concurrent 6-person groups. Everyone will know five former strangers much better after the ~20-minute session is over, but they won’t have learned more about the others in the room.

Trade-offs

So when designing a session or conference that includes The Three Questions, there is a trade-off between the time we have or want to allocate and group size. Why? Because we need to give each person sufficient time for meaningful sharing with their group (typically 1 – 2 minutes per person).

There’s no single answer for this design decision that’s optimum for all circumstances. At a multi-day conference, for example, it makes sense to run multiple simultaneous  50-60 person Three Questions groups for a couple of hours at the start of the event. Everyone in each group will learn important information about the interests and resources of their 50-60 peers. For a monthly board meeting, once a year I might run a single session with the ten board members to remind the group of each member’s “why?”. And at a one-day peer conference with ninety participants, perhaps three simultaneous 30-person sessions would be the way to go.

In some ways this design consideration is a parallel application of Jerry Weinberg’s Law of Raspberry Jam:

The wider you spread it, the thinner it gets.

We are looking for a balance between:

  • intimacy — sharing deeply with a few people, making the format feel more like a conversation; and
  • discovery — learning important things (interests and resources) about everyone in a large group, in a process that feels more like structured sharing.

Both intimacy and discovery have their benefits. So how does group size impact process design? By choosing the size of the groups using The Three Questions, it’s possible to select the balance that works for the design and constraints of each unique situation.

Tags: , , , , , , , | Posted in Dear Adrian | No Comments »

How I got on my feet and danced again

Monday, July 13th, 2015 by Adrian Segar

I danced again: photograph of Adrian Segar on the stage at the 2015 PCMA Educon
I danced again

Here’s a story I told at the opening of the 2015 PCMA Education Conference:

“The EduCon organizers asked me to say a little about the conference format, and I thought about when I was a teenager and loved to go to parties and dance. Then something happened, I don’t remember what it was—probably something incredibly embarrassing involving a girl I liked—and I became self-conscious and stopped dancing.

I stopped dancing for 40 years.

In 2003 I go to a workshop, and if you had told me beforehand that I would dress up in costume there and dance, solo, in front of an audience I would have a) said you were crazy and b) skipped the workshop.

I’m very glad I wasn’t warned, because at that workshop, when I experienced dancing again, I remembered that I love to dance—and I’ve been dancing ever since.

If I had been reminded at the workshop that I used to like to dance, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

All the lecturing in the world wouldn’t have shifted my belief that I really didn’t like to dance anymore.

I had to experience dancing again.

I had to get on my feet and dance!

Now, we’re not going to ask you to dress up and dance at this conference—unless you like doing that, in which case we’ve got the Fort Lauderdale Pool and Beach Party tomorrow night!

But what we are going to do at this conference is to give you plenty of opportunities for participative engagement—to experience things that we think may be useful for you in your lives and work.

In addition, this conference is full of experiments with a variety of learning environments and methods. We are proponents of risky learning—Sarah Lewis & Mel Robbins—will be exploring this in their sessions.

And, in our crowdsourcing experiment tomorrow, you’ll get to choose what you want to learn about, discuss, share, and connect about.

So our hope and desire is that, at EduCon, you will:
– engage;
– be open to your experience, with a willingness to learn from each other; and
– be a resource to your peers.”

It was my hope that sharing a revealing story in front of a thousand people at the start of this conference would model openness amongst attendees for what followed. Based on the feedback people gave me during the event and my observations of the level of interaction and intimacy there, I think I realized my hope.

Tags: , , , , | Posted in life lessons | No Comments »

The Stranger on the Airplane

Sunday, June 6th, 2010 by Adrian Segar

Photograph of a Stranger on Airplane airline passenger. Image attribution: flickr user davitydave - creative commons share alike 2.0 genericAh, the stranger on the airplane.

Long ago, when I was a British college student, I would set off to explore Europe each summer. There were no budget flights in those days, so I traveled by train. Some of my trips lasted days, but I loved the journey because of the people I met. I still remember the G.I. returning from Vietnam, now a Denver judge. The Belgium cabinet minister who tried for several hours to convert us to communism. And the cute Irish postgraduate student who…well never mind.

Now I live in the U.S. where trains are a rarity, at least in my part of the world. So I fly when it doesn’t make sense to drive. And I still enjoy striking up conversations with the stranger(s) sitting next to me. I’m not pushy—some people don’t want to talk, and that’s fine—but, more often than not, we end up exploring each other’s lives for a few hours. Over the last few years I remember, among others, the French airline executive who kissed me on both cheeks when we parted, the nun who visited prisoners and showed me years of correspondence, the fascinating sales director of a major internet hosting company, the lay ministry provider of counseling support for military families, and the British basketball agent who also owned a debt collection agency.

Some of these people shared intimate things about their lives during our time together. Things I doubt they shared with most of the people they worked with every day. They did this because we were never going to meet again. For a few hours, they were with the Stranger on the Airplane. And, of course, they were my Strangers on the Airplane, and sometimes I told them intimate things as well.

The Stranger on the Airplane during Conferences That Work

I’ve seen a similar thing happen at Conferences That Work. The intimacy is not as deep initially, because, I think, attendees are aware that they may meet another time if the conference is held again. On the other hand, if they do meet a sharer again, attendees have an opportunity to go deeper. I find it strange, yet enjoyable, to meet people once a year and expand my connection on each occasion in unforeseen ways.

In my experience, the majority of people (on airplanes and at conferences, at least) enjoy talking quite freely with strangers who they trust. Because the ground rules support a confidential, safe environment this potential of intimacy is present at Conferences That Work. I like that. How about you?

Image attribution: flickr user davitydave – creative commons share alike 2.0 generic

Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »