The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter

Juanita Brown's THE WORLD CAFE is a profoundly insightful and richly practical book, designed for evolutionary times. For me, it is already a classic.One expects it to be a book about one conversational practice, the World Cafe, written by its co-founder. It is. And it isn't.What it is -- most of all -- is an exploration of the power of CONVERSATIONS THAT MATTER -- ALL conversations that matter. It is also an exploration of the conditions under which QUESTIONS THAT MATTER can be deeply and productively explored.The essence of true dialogue is the exploration of questions that are important to us, that shape how we think and what we do next. These questions are central; they are the channel through which our life-passion flows when we are evolving, deepening, and learning. When we do that together -- in rich conversation -- our passions can flow and evolve together, usually going deeper and wider than we tend to go alone.In THE WORLD CAFÉ, this creative dance of conversations and questions is chronicled by more than 100 practitioners, each more articulate than the last, each leading us to another level of understanding about one more important dimension of the transformational magic of dialogue. Their voices are warm, engaged in the shared exploration, not lecturing.Juanita includes all these folks quite intentionally and comfortably. She is being more than "author". She is being "host" -- as in a café conversation in her living room -- welcoming all voices, including her own, into a place of common learning and deepening.I know -- because I have experienced it -- that she has a habit of interviewing practitioners and thinkers who visit her, one by one, sitting on her couch, and collecting their recorded words. And then there is her library of beloved books and articles. In creating this book, THE WORLD CAFÉ, she has dived with friends down to these seabeds of accumulated wisdom, coming up with treasures, food, and exotic life from the depths, eager to share them with the rest of us. They read like poetry:Questions functionas open-handed invitations to creativity,calling forththat which doesn't yet exist. What do we NOT know, that if we DID know, could transform this situation for the better?Human systems grow towards what they persistently ask questions about. We contribute because we are part of something larger than our own lives and efforts, but the form of our contribution is based on our uniqueness and our individuality.One of the hard questions is asking ourselves,'Is this not working, or is it just uncomfortable?'Sometimes the uncomfortable is necessary to break through to new thinking. Silence is the pulley, similar to the rope in a well, that enables members to draw a deeper wisdom up from the common well of mutual exploration and experience.A leader these daysneeds to be a host -- one who convenes people, who convenes diversity, who convenes all viewpoints in creative processes where our intelligence can come forth. Pro-activism involves people actively co-creating - helping each other through dialogue to be, as it were, in our dreams awake, collectively shaping our future.Every acthelps to repair some larger whole, but the repair not only patches it, it also modifies it, transforms it,sets it on the road to becomingsomething else, entirely new.(These quotes are from Marilee Goldberg; Susan Skjei; David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney; Carol Ochs; Janet McCallen, Elizabeth Jetton, Kim Porto and Sean Walters; Juanita Brown; Margaret Wheatley; Samantha Tan; and Christopher Alexander, respectively.)If I had any criticism of this book (it is fashionable, after all, to always have a criticism in a review), it would be that Juanita's specific practice -- The World Café, as a methodology -- is not adequately summarized until quite late. Hidden on page 4 are two sentences hinting at the mechanics of World Café, which slip by quickly as we toboggan into a vast and fascinating landscape of the principles underlying high quality conversation.However, over and over along the way, we hear more about how actual World Cafés work, often through the many compelling stories of past Cafes. Then, in Chapter 10, we stumble on the amazing "World Café Hosting Guide" which - despite Juanita's disclaimer that "this book is not a how-to manual" - tells you pretty much everything you need to know to organize and host one.Still, I would advise those unfamiliar with the core World Café process to read the short description at <co-intelligence.org/P-worldcafe.html> before reading the book. It will help ground you, providing something upon which to hang the sumptuous details you will soon discover.(This may be a minor point: I am so familiar with the process that I had no problem with it. I don't know if anyone will ACTUALLY have trouble with the lack of early summary.)As I made my way through THE WORLD CAFE, I found myself drawn into ever deeper understanding -- of the process (World Café), of the larger patterns of conversation that World Café mimics (the social water through which we humans swim our lives), and of the underlying principles for juicy conversation which apply so broadly to so many diverse conversational techniques.The seven principles of World Café are:* Set the context - Clarify the purpose and parameters of the conversation and its place in the larger environment in which it will happen.* Create hospitable space - Provide a welcoming, safe, life-serving environment.* Explore questions that matter - Invite collective attention into what's important to the participants.* Encourage everyone's contribution - Engage meaningful participation by each person, with real respect.* Cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives - Facilitate juicy diversity and equally juicy interconnectedness.* Listen together for patterns, insights, and deeper questions - Help coherent group insight emerge naturally from the dance of individual perspectives and passions.* Harvest and share collective discoveries - Make the group's collective intelligence visible to itself.In the seven chapters that form the core of THE WORLD CAFÉ, you will explore each of these principles, learning practical insights and many tools for applying each one. The blending of theory and practice is both seamless and visionary.I guess this is what justifies Juanita's insistence that this is not a manual: It becomes increasingly clear that a comprehensive manual for World Café would be impossible. World Café is not a single, well-defined A-B-C process. It is an evolving and expanding family of processes emerging in the conceptual space created by those seven principles. Page after page I found more and more variations on those themes. By the time I was finished, I found myself quite awed by the symphony they made. I also felt freed -- even encouraged -- to make some music of my own, informed by a new deeper understanding of both harmony and dissonance.I could go on for quite a while. There is so much to say. For example:* This book is filled with pictures and graphics that not only clarify major points, but themselves evoke deep understandings and feelings. I think they play a greater role in the overall effect than I realized before writing this review (the learning continues even after the book is done...).* There are surprising insights into (for example) the role of flowers and art, the relationship between talk and action, "the magic in the middle", common sense, the power of setting, itself, to govern the quality of conversation, and -- most important for me -- the sources and dynamics of collective intelligence.* There are well over a hundred questions peppered throughout -- I lost track at 120 -- providing ample models and stimulation for what may be the most critical skill of all -- the creation of powerful questions -- "What could a good school also be?" "What would this workplace be like if it were the kind of place I looked forward to getting up and coming to every morning?" "How can our laboratory be not the best IN the world, but the best FOR the world?"* The resource section, bibliography, index, and the annotated acknowledgments collectively offer a useful and intriguing overview of the network of people and information from which this vibrant work has emerged.I can't recommend this book highly enough. For anyone interested in process, in any kind of dialogue, or in the dynamics of emergence and collective intelligence, THE WORLD CAFE offers a fascinating adventure with helpful hints, profound insights and engaging stories dancing at each turn in the road.And, for a world undergoing one of the most profound and complex evolutionary transitions of its four billion year life, this book offers a path -- of both method and understanding -- through which we can move, in the most natural way possible, into new forms emerging to meet these times. THE WORLD CAFÉ is a midwifery gift to a future struggling to be born.

I feel very privileged to consider Juanita Brown and her partner David Isaacs as good friends and trusted colleagues. We worked with David Isaacs last year to apply the World Café to the first World Congress on the Future of Work in San Francisco. It was so successful that we'll be using it again in Philadelphia this spring.For those of you who haven't yet experienced a World Café, we can only offer our condolences. It's unlike any other "tool" we've ever seen or used for enabling a group of individuals to become what Juanita likes to call a "collective wisdom." The World Café enables all participants at an event to meet, interact with, and learn from all the other participants. It is as different from a typical conference (with PowerPoint presentations and jumbotron television screens) as an intimate dinner with a lover is from a gathering of the faithful in St. Peter's Square in Rome.This remarkable book is a rich and compelling conversation in itself about an incredibly important "new" process for generating new ideas, insights, relationships, and deep personal conversations. We are true believers, and even with our past experience with the World Café we found the compilation of personal stories, guidelines, and case examples wonderfully inspirational.This is truly a remarkable book. I endorse it without reservation. No, let me go further: whether you know it or not, you need to buy this book.Now, let me take just a few moments to give you a flavor of what this is all about. David Isaacs is fond of saying that conversation is for people what water is for fish: we are surrounded by it, but we hardly recognize how critical it is for life and meaning.The World Café is an approach to group interaction that helps us remember what conversation really is: "the medium though which all of us together understand and create the realities we live in" (David Atlee, founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute, quoted in the Introduction).When you participate in a World Café you find yourself seated at a small round table with three other people, who you may or may not know. The table is covered with a large piece of butcher paper, and there is a small vase of fresh flowers in the center. You have access to several crayons or markers, and you are engaging in conversation about something that really matters - typically one or two "Big Questions."You work together for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, and then your Host/Hostess asks three of you to get up and move to three different tables to continue the conversation, while one remains behind to report to three new participants on the meanings behind the scribblings you've left behind on that butcher paper.It all sounds so simple - yet the total experience is incredibly profound. You discover very quickly that the whole truly is greater than the sum of the parts. There really is a collective intelligence that is far more powerful than any of our individual insights.To get back to the book for a final moment, it is written as a compilation of stories and examples of events where the World Café has been used. The book actually has many voices (what could be more appropriate?), and Juanita graciously (but not surprisingly) gives ample credit to the many thoughtful, caring people who have contributed to the process and operational design of the World Café over the years.And the book is a "how to do it yourself" compendium as well. The core of the book articulates and makes real the seven core design principles of a World Café:1. Set the Context2. Create Hospitable Space3. Explore Questions that Matter4. Encourage Everyone's Participation5. Cross-pollinate and Connect Diverse Perspectives6. Listen Together for Insights, Patterns, and Deeper Questions7. Harvest and Share Collective Discoveries.Applied in combination, these basic design principles virtually ensure that you'll have a powerful learning and relationship-enhancing experience. Even if you never read the book, try living by these principles, and I'm willing to bet you'll find yourself having more meaningful conversations than you realized were possible.And the best part of all this is that it isn't rocket science, a foreign language, or some elite skill that requires years to master. As David Isaacs says over and over again, it's just a matter of remembering (practicing and acting on) what you've known all along.

It's OK

If you haven't facilitated group work much, this would be a great book. However, if you have, I'm not sure you'll get a lot from it. It talks about how to get participants to open up in small groups and how to record the thoughts and ideas from that group. The idea is to have this done in a way that doesn't look formal and allows people to share openly but in a way in which you can still get a formal report out of the group, if that is what you want.If you don't know how to do that, this book is for you. I use the ideas in this book and they work. I just don't use the flowers and candles on the table

The book is a good overview of the principles and processes used in World Cafés. Its part of my standard collection for public engagement and I look back on it every once in a while for different perspectives. The World Café approach is a valid approach if one truly is willing and able to allow a community dialogue to evolve naturally. A useful resource I share often.

Waffle and self congratulation throughout. You will search in vain for a clear explanation of what it is about. Don't bother.

This book is content-wise excellent. However, it's not really an ebook. I desperately miss the table of content and other hints how to find my way around. The imprinted page numbers, which show up at different places disturb as well. Again - in terms of content, the book is really great!