Topic: “Deepening group dialogue through metaphors”
by Barbara MacKay, CPFIM
From <The Power of Dialogue- Conversations with Masters> series
(summary by anonymous contributor , graphic recorder: Grace Wang)
Deepening group dialogue through metaphors with Barbara MacKay, CPFIM
From <The Power of Dialogue- Conversations with Masters> series
This workshop was the 3rd in a series of CP Yen Foundation Workshops held to broaden up the use of dialogue so as to facilitate positive social change. Barbara’s session was a rich co-creative community exploration as we experienced a varied of uses of metaphors in dialogue, each meeting different purposes. Metaphors make ideas more relatable and many kinds of challenges easier to grow through.
The flow of the event was bubbly chat as we arrived, Jorie’s opening context, Barbara’s context, educational piece on metaphor and a series of exercises and our group closing.
Entering ZOOM we were welcomed as people were sharing interesting stories from their lives. The Prompt: Here’s a question for everyone / anyone – what’s something interesting happening in your world?
At 10am, Jorie called us into focus giving rich context. Paraphrasing Jorie, all changes happen in dialogue so a good dialogue will enhance good collaboration and allow surprising changes to happen naturally. How do you know you’re in dialogue? Well there are 3 noticeable dynamics: 1) Equality. All voices are heard regardless of age, rank etc. 2) Empathic Listening. This is sometimes explained as listening from inside the words as the speaker, so listening for what’s present but not necessarily spoken. 3) Assumptions are being surfaced. Some say words themselves are metaphors. At the very least we each come from different understandings, so good questions or advocacy can reveal, then clarify assumptions playing in a group. Doing that we have a better chance of actually both articulating and the hearing intended meaning. Jorie had 4 aims and we easily hit 3.
To
– learn from each other,
– help each other,
– be in community, and
– finish by 11:30.
Barbara’s Time
Then it was over to Barbara, letting us in on the fact “This is a brand new workshop. I’ve never done it before and I just want to have fun with you, I just want to have fun and see. It’s going to be very interactive. We’re going to explore together to see what we take from it.”
We learned she’s always been interested in image and the fact that people actually live out their language. Our thinking is almost always in metaphor. Given this, isn’t it ODD that we don’t use imagery more in consultation?
In a nutshell, dialogue is so important. It’s crucial to how we understand one other, how we solve problems together, how we really take ourselves further and forward. And people think in images all the time. They think with their senses, with feeling, touching, seeing and hearing. So, can we help ourselves in our own inner dialogue?
After her overview, a few slides helped us think about metaphor. What IS a metaphor or imagery? Some English (and Chinese) examples kicked off our thinking.
– Our team was as quiet as mice.
– The instructions are as clear as day or as clear as a sky.
– You’re as slow as a turtle.
– I’m as tired as a dog.
– We’re pulling a cow up a tree, here.
How might we set a positive tone with your own inner dialogue prior to working with a group that you find really challenging? Together we explored this.
Sometimes our inner dialogue is saying “I don’t know if i can do this." Or “This is too difficult." The feeling might be heavy, like a stone dropping into the water.
So, how might we change this? We can try changing the internal image. ICA often talks about this as “Image Shift.” We played with the images of peace and harmony with a group and shifting our focus consciously to holding that as an expectation.
The hope was that we’d go away from the session contemplating a few things.
Q: How is our life is like a metaphor right now? Barbara shared how hers, for example, is now like riding a bicycle.
Q: Can we identify metaphors of crucial importance to ourselves? This might be images, smells or sounds that just simply build up our confidence, or give us a sense of how exactly to behave in a given moment?
Breakout Exercises
Then we jumped into a series of breakout exercises.
This gave us lots of practice. Each had orientation to the task, then moved to breakout room dialogue, returning together to harvest some of what was learned onto a Google Doc (tiny link: https://tinyurl.com/bdcsnnwb)
(1) Self Reflection on Inner Dialogue.
Metaphors are helpful for personal reflection.
PROMPT: How it is for you in your own WORK? Describe your work as it feels NOW considering the senses of image / sound / taste / smell / feeling.
(2) Designing For our Client.
Designing for an event it can be helpful to dialoguing collaboratively getting your client to describe as a metaphor what’s going on in the situation they want to change, and what outcome are they looking for?
(3) Deepening Group Dialogue.
It’s good to understand the detailed aspects of the 3 dynamics in a dialogue as metaphor.
Q: How DO you make it so a group feels …
(a) safe and comfortable and each person feels power equal to everyone else? (Equality)
(b) like they can be spaciously and deeply heard and listened to, not judged, taught, fixed, explained to, etc.? (Empathic Listening)
(c) safe, knowing what everyone is thinking, that nothing’s lurking buried under the surface they don’t understand? (Surfacing Assumptions)
(4) Looking at the 4 Stages in a Group Discussion.
It’s helpful to think about the 4 stages of discussions and what each stage is meant to do. If we can imagine it as a sound, a taste, a sight or a feeling then we’re more likely to be accurate in terms of helping the group move through those stages of a dialogue.
FINAL REFLECTION At the end we each shared insights from the session and learned about things coming up next. It was an honor to spend time with everyone seeing how metaphor can trigger spirit and connection, making complexity simple and growth and learning easier.
2022朝邦文教基金會對話新訊息 – 秋季刊
The Power of Dialogue -Conversations with Master- Barbara MacKay , CPFIM
與大師對話系列：對話的力量 – 與 Barbara MacKay對話
運用隱喻 加深團隊對話
這次的工作坊是朝邦基金會《與大師對話》系列的第三場，希望擴展對話的運用，藉以促進正向的社會變革。這次Barbara的工作坊是一場豐富的共創社區探索，讓我們在對話中根據不同的目的，使用隱喻來進行。隱喻讓我們更容易理解一些想法，也更容易面對跟克服許多的挑戰。
活動進行的過程輕鬆熱絡。Jorie開場時定調活動架構，Barbara也說明架構，接著介紹說明隱喻，一系列的練習，最後是大家的結語。
進入Zoom的時候感受到歡迎的氛圍。大家分享生命中有趣的故事。
開場的問題：請分享一些你的世界所發生的趣事。
早上十點，Jorie讓我們聚焦，希望讓這個工作坊內容更豐富。用Jorie的話來說，所有的改變都會在對話中發生，因此好的對話會強化良好的合作，讓令人驚訝的改變自然發生。你怎麼知道你在對話？基本上有3個可以注意到的動態：1）平等。無論年齡，等級等，都能聽到所有的聲音2）同理心傾聽。我們可以解釋成說話的人從話語的內在來聆聽，所以聆聽到當下的訊息，而不見得一定會說出來的訊息。3）讓假設浮出。有人說文字本身就是隱喻。至少我們每個人都來自不同的理解，所以好的問題或說明可以顯現，然後澄清在一個群體中存在的假設。這樣做，我們就更能夠敘述跟聽到彼此想要表達的意義。Jorie提出4個目標，我們輕鬆達標3個，分別是
- 彼此學習
- 彼此幫助
- 成為社群的一分子，還有
- 11:30 前結束
Barbara的時間
換到Barbara的時間時，她告訴我們「這是一個全新的工作坊，是我以前從未進行過的，我只想和大家一起玩得開心，我只是想玩得開心，看看會發生什麼。這將是互動性非常強的工作坊。我們將一起探索，看看我們從中得到了什麼。」
我們瞭解到她一直對形象感興趣，以及人們實際上活出他們的語言的事實。我們的 思維幾乎總是在隱喻中。有鑒於此，我們在諮詢中不採用更多形象是不是很奇怪？
簡而言之，對話是如此重要。這對於我們如何理解彼此，如何共同解決問題，如何真正進一步向前邁進都非常重要。人們一直在形象中思考。他們用他們的感官思考，用感覺，用觸摸，用視覺和聽覺思考。那麼，我們能不能用自己內在的對話來幫助自己？
在她整體說明之後，她提供的幾張投影片幫助我們更進一步思考隱喻。什麼是隱喻或形象？我們用了一些英文（和中文）的例子來開始腦力激盪。
- 我們的團隊像老鼠一樣安靜。
- 說明像白天一樣清晰，或像天空一樣清晰。
- 你像烏龜一樣慢。
- 我累得像狗一樣。
- 我們把一頭牛拉到樹上，在這裡。
在與一個你覺得真正具有挑戰性的團隊合作之前，我們如何通過自己的內心對話設定正向的基調？我們一起探討了這一點。
有時我們的內心對話是說「我不知道我是否能做到這一點。」或者「這太難了。」這種感覺可能很沉重， 就像一塊石頭掉進水裡那樣沉重。
那麼，我們該如何改變這種狀況呢？ 我們可以嘗試更改內在的形象。ICA經常將此稱為「形象轉化Imaginal Shift」。我們在小組裡將和平與和諧的形象做一些變化，並有意識地將注意力轉移，定調為期望。
希望我們能在工作坊結束之後繼續思考一些事項。
問題：我們現在的生活像一個什麼樣的隱喻？Barbara分享她的例子，說她現在的生活就像騎自行車一樣。
問題：我們能找出對自己極為重要的隱喻嗎？這可能是圖像，氣味或聲音，單純要建立了我們信心，或者讓我們知道在特定的時間該如何表現的東西。
分組討論
接下來我們進行一系列的小組練習活動。
這讓我們有機會做很多練習。每場活動都會先介紹討論主題，接著大家就到小組進行對話，結束後回到大組，將大家的學習整理後放到Google文件檔案裡（連結：https://tinyurl.com/bdcsnnwb）
(1) 內心對話的自我反思。
隱喻有助於個人的反思。
請大家發言討論：在你自己的工作中，這對你有什麼好處？現在請在思考形象/聲音/味道/氣味/感覺的感官之後，描述你的工作。
(2) 為我們的客戶設計流程。
設計活動時，如果能夠進行合作性的對話，請客戶將他們想要改變的情況，以及他們正在尋找什麼結果，透過隱喻來描述，將會更有幫助。
(3) 深化小組對話。
在對話中理解3個動態的細節方面作為隱喻是很好的。
問題：你如何讓它讓一個群體感覺…
(a)安全和舒適，每個人都覺得自己的權力與其他人平等？（平等）
(b)他們可以被寬厚而深入地聽到和傾聽，而不是被評論、指導、定型、解釋等等？（同理傾聽）
(c)安全，知道每個人在想什麼，沒有任何東西隱藏於他們不理解的表面之下？（假設的浮現）
(4)檢視小組討論的4個階段。
如果我們能思考討論的4個階段以及每個階段要做什麼，那就會很有幫助。如果我們能把它想像成一種聲音、一種味道、一種景象或一種感覺，那麼我們更有可能準確地幫助團隊完成對話的這些階段。
最終反思
最後，大家分享工作坊的洞察，並瞭解了接下來將進行的事項。很榮幸能與大家共度這段時光，理解到隱喻如何激發出我們的靈性與連結，化繁為簡，也讓成長和學習更容易。
2022對話影響力系列線上分享會-5
〈芥助網―串連社區互助共好幸福網〉
過去，社福機構以社工專業方法解決社會問題；如今世代不斷變遷，社會的需要不再相同，很多過去的習慣與已知的思維無法再提供解方。深耕社福領域多年的芥菜種會相信，透過對話，必能影響更多人一起來編織「芥助網」，為社會帶來正向的改變；使助人工作的行動在社區展開，讓每個有需求的地方，都有良善的社福網絡給予最有力與及時的支持！邀請朋友們一起來參與這場精彩的線上分享會！
主辦單位：朝邦文教基金會
分享來賓：
李肇家
現任：芥菜種會 執行長
經歷：圓剛科技 副總、富士康 協理、Dell TW 總經理、HP 惠普科技協理
李士青
現任：芥菜種會社區發展處 處長
經歷：伊甸基金會總管理處 處長、伊甸基金會基隆服務區 區長
江宜錦
現任：芥菜種會研發部社會設計中心 主任
經歷：芥菜種會習藝所 主任、理想大地渡假飯店 公關主任、麥邁景觀設計顧問公司 經理
日期：2022年10月3日(星期一)
時間：19:30~21:30 (台灣時間)
報名連結：https://www.accupass.com/event/2209010235031914636370
朝邦文教基金會 