When I was a child, our family parties seemed, inevitably, to evolve into the entire family sitting in a large circle, chatting, talking, engaging one another. Circle just happened. In it, we're not leaders and followers, we're not bosses and employees or elected officials and voters - we're peers and equals. Circle facilitates conversation, sharing, and respect. Circle is foundational to participative processes - in various ways it's practice is central to participatory meetings and leadership. You can learn circle in 45 minutes and spend a lifetime mastering it.
Circle is foundational to most participative models.
Sitting in a circle seems to be instinctive amongst us clever monkeys. Almost any time people gather, without thinking or discussion, they seem to sit in a circle, all facing one another. We don't have to plan it or arrange it, it just happens. Formally calling a circle involves both obvious and subtle ways of focusing our attention and structuring our conversations.
At its core, Circle like other participative models invites participants to lead and leaders to see themselves as hosts who create and hold the social space in which the work gets done. If you do a search for formal circle methods, there are a few out there (Study Circles, Discussion Circle, Full Circle Discussion Group and so on). All involve some shared concepts - a statement of intention, one member acts as host or facilitator, a formal opening and a formal closing. PeerSpiritis the specific form given circle by Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea.
PeerSpirit Circle follows these steps:
- Setting our intention
- Welcome/Starting point
- Centering and Check in
- Agreements
- Principles/Practices
- Guardian of process
- Check out/Closing
Those seven steps are the process of calling the circle.
The person calling the circle sets the intention and articulates it. It can be something as simple as "Meet to connect with other parents in the school district who are concerned about the dangerous intersection at 9400 South" or it can be complex "Identify systemic challenges in implementing health care reform." The person or organization calling the circle needs to articulate the intention, pick a time and location and share it with invitees.
To state the obvious, we're meeting in a circle; you need to put the chairs in a circle; in the center, you put a table or cloth on the ground and arrange some items to serve as the center of the circle.
I'm a big fan of light snacks, hot tea and so on. It helps people transition from "out there" to "in here."
When everyone is present, you move to welcome. Welcome is someone speaking a few words and establishing a "center". In a meeting about health insurance, I might place a small table covered with a cloth in the center of the room, with a stethoscope, prescription bottle, hospital bill, an apple and a picture of someone exercising; use your creativity - you might invite people to bring something that symbolizes the topic for them or you might create it at the opening of the circle. The welcome and center draw our attention to the intention; the center reinforces the intention but also helps keep conversation focused.
Then you move to check-in. How you do check in will vary on the size of your circle and the amount of time you set aside. With 300 people, having everyone take a turn to speak could easily take all day. With circles of 25 people, check in can easily take an hour. At one event, with about 45 or 50 people, the host invited us to form triads and in our triads take five minutes each to introduce ourselves and talk about why we had come to the event; then we regathered in a large circle and each person was invited to speak one sentence about why one of the other two had come. The host recorded the key words from those sentences on easel paper and posted it for everyone to see. Check-in is just what it sounds like - people are invited to check in and speak whatever they feel is necessary for the group to hear; it can be in response to a specific question or a more general "Where are you in your life?" It can also be a basic introduction - "Please share your first and last name, the names of your children and what grade they're in."
You then set the agreements - in PeerSpirit they offer a list of sample agreements; a few simple statements often suffice - things such as "Use "I" Language" "Speak for yourself not for others" "Model the behavior you want to see." The practices seem obvious but you still want to make them explicit:
- To speak with intention: noting what has relevance to the conversation in the moment.
- To listen with attention: respectful of the learning process for all members of the group.
- To tend the well-being of the circle: remaining aware of the impact of our contributions.
The general idea is that the people in the circle are mutually responsible for its well being.
The Guardian is a circle member who has a chime or other device that allows them to stop the conversation if it gets overheated or they identify the need for a moment of peace.
Groups that meet regularly develop strong habits - the guardian and the agreements and principles become ingrained in their behaviors. For groups that meet once in a while, its worth taking the time to do these things. Some groups use a talking piece which has the advantage of encouraging people to take turns speaking.
Aside from check-in, all the other stuff can be handled very quickly easily. Setting agreements, the guardian, welcome, preparing the space will in some ways be invisible to circle participants. The formal work of the circle begins when the host poses the question. When working with large groups, you can easily break the large circle into smaller circles, then bring people back together to harvest and then close.
Circle discussions quickly take on a life of their own. When you break into smaller groups, it's wise to give people a time limit - "We'll come back together in 30 minutes" - or you can find yourself waiting all day. On the other hand, if you want to unleash people's creativity and have the time, don't hesitate to let the circle discussion go as long as it needs.
At the end of your time together, you want to formally close the circle. Allow each person to state what they've heard or learned. It can be as a simple as "State one word you heard that tonight that resonates" or invite a longer, more detailed statement. Then, when everyone has spoken, you close the circle by thanking everyone. A friend of mine likes to use a "clap" - everyone separates their hands and claps once. I like to strike a chime three times; another friend uses a singing bowl; still another always lights a candle in her center and blows it out to signify the circle is done.
That sounds simple enough, right?
It is.
Depending on your group or your needs, circle may be part of your meeting. I can imagine a setting in which the leaders of a group of advocacy groups come together, open with circle, then move into small working groups, then return to circle to close; or in which campaign volunteers arrive in the morning, gather in circle, then go about their day's activities of door knocking or phone banking. A number of other participative models engage circle as part of their practices.
You can face some interesting challenges when implementing circle. For instance, I was part of a leadership team that traditionally met around tables and people took notes and wrote on their laptops. The tables became a barrier to discussion. When we removed the tables, several people complained vociferously; another person demanded, demanded a table. One person complained that she felt as if she were being forced to speak because the new format was so open. Of course, there were the usual "I hate this touchy feely stuff" complaints. The leaders held their ground and once participants made the transition, suddenly conversation changed. Issues that had been hidden or ignored before were being spoken aloud. People had to face each other and it was harder to not participate - if you're not partially obscured behind a table, your closed body language is more obvious and people can respond appropriately. Objections and concerns were spoken more freely. That leadership team now meets in circle and it has become so much a part of their practice that they complain when they have to meet in other formats.