My Thursday meeting (by Erik)

What was the meeting about? Over the past couple of years there have been four efforts to develop a vision for the Flemish agricultural sector. However, up to now, most of these efforts did not lead to action for several reasons. Our small foundation has been awarded a small project to try to align these efforts to be able to take next steps.

We decided to do that in series of five multistakeholder dialogues with input of each of the four visioning projects. We also decided to frame the whole using the theory of transition management, a large-scale system change methodology that is very popular in the Netherlands and increasingly also in the EU (see for example www.drift.eur.nl). For this we invited Prof. Jan Rotmans, the Dutch transition guru, to deliver a lecture.

We brought together a group of 25, including CEOs, top civil servants, NGO people and academics, all from the Flemish agricultural sector. The diversity was so great that never such a group had met before.

My role was to host and facilitate all the dialogues, including the first one. So as you can see, my Thursday meeting was quite a challenge for me. All that was set was the timing: the introductory lecture by Rotmans from 2 to 4 pm for a larger public; a dialogue of the core group of 25 with Rotmans from 4.30 to 6.30 pm; diner from 6.30 to 8 pm; and a closing dialogue from 8 to 9 pm (without Rotmans).

The following questions raged through my head before the meeting (and at the Heerlijkheid):

• How to build ownership and a common understanding of the project among all the participants?
• How to get people to get to know each other?
• How to inspire people such that they would stay on board and come back next time?
• How to make sure that all voices can be heard?
• How to increase the quality of the conversation?

One of my mates was particularly concerned with the third question, that is that some people (particularly from business) would not stick for the whole process.

My harvest from AoH Belgium was rich, but I brought particularly three things to the meeting:

• I was going to center, to be present and make sure that to be aware of what is living or what wants to emerge
• I was not going to overstructure and walk the line between chaos and order, let go and trust and allow new things to emerge
• I was going to be authentic, whatever that would mean; I was not going to be a chameleon.

The meeting

The lecture by Rotmans and Q&A from 2 to 4 pm were good, but classical.

In the half hour break we rearranged the room and made a circle. While it was the very first time in my life I had organised a conversation in full circle, I had never any doubt it wouldn’t work. People came back from the break, looked a bit puzzled seeing the chairs arranged in a circle, but without any comment everyone sat down and we started the first conversation, which was a further discussion with Prof. Rotmans on transition management. For introduction I only asked people to say who they were and what their affiliation was. I originally wanted to have a more extended introduction, but at 1.30 pm I was told Prof. Rotmans was to leave at 6 pm instead of 8 pm.

What circle did, is rearrange the group and force everyone to be present. During the lecture, the big guys were typically sitting in the back, having an overview of the whole (they were also late for the lecture) and having the option to opt out. In circle, everyone has an overview of the whole. And everyone was clearly present. You could really sense that.

What circle didn’t do, is create a level playing field for all participants. Those with the loudest voice asked their questions (all of them were men). Also all questions were critical towards the speaker. Nobody that spoke, did so in terms of what would be possible. While very aware of these biases, I kept my intervention at a minimum, that is, acting as a moderator and making sure that those who signalled that they wanted to say something could do so. I had thought a lot about introducing a talking piece, also beforehand, but I felt the group was not ready for that yet.

Having diner (in the same room) really shifted things. People got to know each other and trust emerged.

As a result, the second conversation, also in circle was much more appreciative, also because now the conversation was about the purpose of the project. People that didn't speak before, did so now. Unintentionally, I was very bad in formulating how I saw the purpose, but in fact that was a good thing, because several people restated the purpose in a much better and accurate way, thus increasing the ownership of the project.

Epilogue