Blue Oxen Barnstars: Jeff Conklin
As part of our continuing efforts to tell the wonderful collaborative stories of the people with whom we’re lucky enough to work, we’re pleased to announce a new podcast, Blue Oxen Barnstars. Each episode, we’ll highlight individuals doing extraordinary collaborative work.
Our first guest is Jeff Conklin, who’s been a great friend and teacher for many years. Jeff is an amazing facilitator and thinker who created a process called Dialogue Mapping, which helps groups make sense of Wicked Problems.
The process consists of facilitating a meeting around a shared display (usually a projected computer screen), on which the facilitator is graphically capturing the dialogue in real-time.
While the map itself and the tool to create the map are interesting, the real power is in the process, which helps participants develop shared language and focus on critical, underlying issues and which helps depoliticize discussions.
Jeff shares with us many deep insights into the nature of meetings and listening as well as the story of his evolution from scientist to facilitator. I think you’ll really enjoy this inaugural episode.
In addition to getting to talk to amazing people, I’m also lucky to have friends and colleagues who contributed to this podcast, both directly and indirectly. The name is derived from the term, “barnstar”, which is used by the Wiki community to describe outstanding and often behind-the-scenes contributors and which was coined by Sunir Shah. Paul Youlten recommended the music — Ant Neeley’s catchy tune, “Might as well whistle.” Lisa Chu lent her lovely vocal talents for the narration at the beginning and end of the podcast.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:08:07 — 62.4MB)
2 Responses to “Blue Oxen Barnstars: Jeff Conklin”
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A gift to all of us. Thanks.
I especially liked the recollections of Corporate Memory Systems (someone should REALLY write a book), and the many ways the theme of listening was interwoven in the conversation. I have often had the sense that all we are doing is recovering an ability we all used to have, in the now distant past.
Al
Wonderful focus on listening.
It takes me back to synectics and group dynamics in the 60’s. The focus on paraphrasing, or ability of the listener to restate the position of the speaker, is one of the augmenting keys.
The real time documentation of the meeting is another key. Care has to be taken in the selection of phrases to put in the software, but text capture by itself is not enough — the noise overwhelms the signal.
Capture of the multiple arguments pro and con is also part of the documentation that often gets lost. If it is done right it makes no real difference whether the speaker is identified or not, as long as the contribution is documented, and can be considered in context.
Enjoy!
Jim Carter