Having just returned to the list after a short time away, I'm picking up
on this conversation mid-stream. I hope I direct to it appropriate
observations.
Last year I read with fascination on this list about the Talking Stick.
Several contributors added their observations and experiences. I have
since added to my high performance team training an explicit mention of
the talking stick as a focusing tool for face-to-face conversation.
Three days ago I walked by a meeting room where a new team was "forming".
They had nearly reached the end of their meeting, and were engaged in what
I have nicknamed "process playback"--when, five minutes before time, a
team leaves content aside and asks for plus/deltas, or "I like...I
wish..." or strengths weaknesses (there are myriad names for this
exercise). I was very pleased to see how this team was carrying on.
And in the center of the table was a kind of Nerf stick. "What's that?" I
asked. "Talking Stick!" they chimed in. Nice. How certain old things
work over and over and over. That says something albeit obliquely about
humankind's essence.
Best regards,
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.com Total Quality Resource Manager MARKEM Corporation Keene, NHLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>