Do you know that feeling of four or five people sat at a table having an absolutely brilliant conversation ?

Absolutely brilliant conversations start with great questions, continue with a diversity of perspectives and finish with everyone understanding things differently.

(It should be said that absolutely brilliant conversations rely on a quality of listening to each to other too !)

World Cafe is a great format for enabling groups to have absolutely brilliant conversations.  (See the video in the right hand column for a ‘live’ example !)

Where it works best is where lots of diverse people care about the same questions, the format helps them to explore the questions, share perspectives and ideas and create maps of common understanding from which new creativity and imaginative actions can follow.

Where it doesn’t work is where someone wants to control the outcome - brilliant conversations have a life of their own and go off in directions nobody could ever predict.

In most organisations and systems, people don’t talk deeply about the things that matter most.  Typically, we talk most to the people most like us who say the things most like the things we say.  World Cafe cracks open a world of possibility and potential, as it enables us to see new perspectives on our systems, to appreciate diversity and to turn differences into strengths.

Over time, I’m planning to post examples of different cafes that have helped to break open fixed ways of thinking and working, so keep an eye on the site to help raise your horizons of what might be possible.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
US Anthropologist, Author