Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community
Six
Conversations That Matter
SM
The Tools
Invitation:
The invitation is a
request to engage. It is different from selling, trying to gain
“buy-in,” or “rolling out” something. It is to ask others to choose to
join in creating a new conversation.
Assembly:
The way we
structure the assembly of peers and leaders is as critical as the
invitation or the questions. What is critical is to recognize the
importance of the way we assemble. One conventional order of assembly is
Robert’s Rules of Order. It is good at efficiency and containing
conflict, it is also good at dampening aliveness. Most of our gatherings
pay primary attention to a problem solving, rather than an engagement
logic. We want to give as much or more attention to the engagement than
to the content.
Questions:
Questions
are more transformative than answers. They are the essential tools of
engagement. They are the means by which we are all confronted with our
freedom. In this sense, if you want to change the culture, find a
powerful question. The shift in language, evoked by the question, is the
transformation that constitutes the change in culture. |
