Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: As others see us

[Howard Landman (howard]

>> - for the past year I have come to monthly meetings with 5 marbles in one
>> of my two side pockets. Each time I share an opinion or analysis of a
>> situation, I switch a marble to my other pocket. I need to debate with
>> myself how to "spend" my marbles, sometimes deciding to wait and see if
>> someone else would raise the same issue, so I could speak on something
>> different. 

My friend Ted Kaehler devised an explicit group variant of this.

* He brings poker chips equal to the number of minutes the meeting will last.
  These are divided equally among the attendees.

* He has a PDA programmed to beep randomly about once per minute.
  (This is to prevent people from "knowing" when it will beep.)

* If you are talking and the PDA beeps, you must throw a chip into the
  center of the circle.

* If you have no chips, you may not speak.  However, if you wish to speak,
  you may raise your hand and "beg" for a chip.  Other people who do not
  wish to speak, or who are especially interested in hearing what you have
  to say, may give you chips.  But it's up to them.  If you've been boring
  the pants off of everyone, don't expect anyone to fuel more of it.  :-)

This worked very well in the group we were in together.  There were one or
two "loudmouths" who absolutely had to speak to every question.  15 minutes
into the meeting they were both out of chips.  :-)  A few people took pity
on them and gave them more, but they quickly realized that they'd better
keep it short and to the point.

Ted also tried many other approaches such as "talking stick", simply asking
the people who hadn't spoken yet to say something, etc.  After 5 or 6 meetings
like that we all got the idea and didn't need the gimmicks as much.

One gimmick I use secretly is: there's one guy in our community who speaks
rarely, but with great thoughtfulness.  I admire that a lot.  So sometimes
I watch him, and only allow myself to speak about the same amount that he
did.  (And hopefully, with equal thoughtfulness!)

        Howard
_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l