Five tips for Re-humanizing Meeting Structure and Process

by Tenneson Woolf

People in systems and organizations want deeply human experiences together. This is what Natalija describes in her article. Yet, so often, people don’t speak of such desire, or feel they can’t speak of such desire. Instead we go for something less “emotional” or less “spiritual.” Like, “communication tools” (I use this too). Because it gives people a more familiar hook upon which to hang a workshop that get’s people in the room. I am so glad that many of us these days are boldly calling for what is underneath communication tools, for re-humanized process.

I’m also glad for Natalija’s description of working with health care professionals because within that, is a meta-narrative that I often use — all teams and organizations and communities need focus on their health. Circle and other participative processes help contribute to long-term health of a group of people. Circle and other participative processes help us gain strength by re-humanizing both what we do, and how we do it.

To “re-humanize” is a significant shift in paradigm. Below I offer a few tips — orientations and invitations —that I’ve found helpful to cultivate this re-humaning.

1. Have Courage / Lend Courage — There may be a lot that is counter normative to contemporary meeting culture when we invite people, and ourselves, to show up in circle with vulnerabilities and added honesty about things mostly uncertain. Though many of us practitioners feel “lonely,” I would suggest we are not “alone” as we try to add meaning and purpose to even the most un-circly of places.

2. Have Patience / Contribute Patience — I will continue to welcome the reality of broad change that happens in a heart beat. However, it also remains true that most of us don’t know upon which heartbeat such change might happen. While so many of us are enculturated to demand speed in everything, circle and re-humaning invokes in us patience to slow down.

3. Start Where You Are — It’s not everything that needs to happen all at once, though many of us will wish this to be so. I’ve learned from my early mentors that it is all connected anyway. The questions. The issues. The behaviors. The fears and worries. With freedom to “start where you are” the first gift you get is groups in motion and creation together, rather than stuck in unhelpful and fear-based analysis.

4. Follow The Spark of Yes — You know how contemporary meeting culture so often requires reports that often feel dead in summative detail. Most of us are fearful of leaving something out given operating systems of blame. A great skill in re-humanizing structure is to learn to follow uniquely what is juicy. Not all of it. Just a spark, what arises. Sometimes it’s the next first step, or the next first insight, not the five year plan.

5. Welcome Interruptions — Though so many of us seek to support new paths and new process, sometimes the work is just about interrupting stuck patterns. Less sexy. But very needed. Sometimes, the interruption is the radical act. Not the solution. Not the comprehensive plan. Just interrupting something that most people know is impeding the needed next.

Here’s to all of us in our efforts to re-humanize through simple, yet ongoing practice, that circle can so beautifully provide. Here’s to all of us contributing health that our times so genuinely implore of us.

Tenneson Woolf is a facilitator, workshop leader, teacher, blogger, and coach committed to improving the quality of collaboration and imagination needed in groups, teams, and organizations — to help us be in times such as these with consciousness, kindness, and learning. He is a long-time steward of The Art of Hosting, and long-time student and practitioner of presence in circle. He posts a daily blog, Human to Human, in which he offers reflection on varied aspects of participative leadership practices, insights, and human to human depth. Tenneson lives in a small town where urban meets rural, Lindon, Utah, at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. He is originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.