Juanita brown world cafe biography sample
An Essay for the World Café 20th Anniversary
Reflecting on the origin of the World Café and inquiring into the value that we should uphold as practitioners for the promising future&#;
by Daisuke Kawaguchi, Chief Researcher, Human Value
It has been 20 years since the World Café was born into this world by Juanita Brown, David Isaacs, and other practitioners. Since its birth, enormous numbers of café conversations have been conducted to shape better futures, and now the World Cafe is known as one of the greatest methodologies for generative facilitation in a variety of areas. In Japan, as well, the movement of the café conversations has been wide-spread with a large influence on our way of communication and collaboration after the book of “The World Café – Shaping the future through conversations that matter” was published in Japanese translation.
Reflecting on the very early days, a founder, Juanita Brown once said to me under the beautiful sunshine in Jonesborough, “The name ‘World Café’ came from the desire that the café conversations will be able to contribute to the World Service in the future.” I believe this desire has been half-fulfilled as we see the values and impacts that the World Café has accomplished so far.
Today, 20 years later, the world surrounding us is totally changing. With the increase of complexity and ambiguity, there can be seen a lot of tough conflicts, problems or fragmentations that cannot be solved without the efforts of dialogue. I assume that the role of the World Café and the conversational leadership will become larger, greater, or bigger than ever.
In order for us to go further to the promising future, I think it is important for now to inquire the positive core values of the World Café once again so that we can grow and leverage them in a reinforcing way. Therefore in this essay, I will firstly go back to the origin of the World Café to inquire the philosophy and principles in the methodology. And based on the reflection, I
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Recommendatio
Brown, Isaacs, The World Café
Juanita Brown, David Isaacs, World Café Community, The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter. Berrett-Koehler Publishers,
Referenced in: Strategies for Church Renewal &#; Whole Systems, Large Group
Summary
This book discusses World Café, a Whole Systems approach to organizational renewal that has been useful in churches. It is popular worldwide. Since its inception in , tens of thousands of people on six continents have used World Caféfor productive conversations in groups ranging from 12 to 1, As with all Whole Systems approaches, it works only in situations where leaders are willing to let creative solutions arise from the people, not in controlled outcome settings. For a good description of its potential in churches, see the discussion in Mead and Alban Creating the Future Together. For a general description of World Café process, the following is taken from the World Cafe Community Foundation.
The World Café is a living network of conversations around questions that matter. It is an easy-to-use method for fostering collaborative dialogue, particularly in large groups. It is, simultaneously, a provocative metaphor enabling us to notice the often invisible webs of conversation and social learning which lie at the heart of our capacity to share knowledge and shape the future together.
Using the World Café as a method empowers leaders and other professionals to intentionally create focused networks of conversation around an organization or community&#;s real work and critical questions. Café conversations are designed on the assumption that people already have within them the wisdom and creativity to confront even the most difficult challenges. They are based on the natural process by which authentic conversations enable people to think together, create shared meaning, strengthen community and ignite innova Consider all the learning that occurs as people move from place to place inside and outside an organization, carrying insights and ideas from one conversation to another. The invisible connections among these conversations and the actions that emerge from them help to build the organization’s collective knowledge and shape its future. But the process of co-creating the future through conversation is so natural we usually overlook it. Since our early ancestors gathered in circles around the warmth of a fire, conversation has been a primary process for making sense of our world, discovering what we value, sharing knowledge, and imagining our future. Small groups exploring important questions — and connecting with other groups that are doing the same — have always played a major role in social and institutional renewal. Consider the sewing circles and &#;committees of correspondence&#; that helped birth the American Republic; the conversations in cafés and salons that spawned the French Revolution; and the Scandinavian &#;study circles&#; that stimulated an economic and social renaissance in Northern Europe. Reaching out in ever-widening circles, members of small groups spread their insights to larger constituencies, carrying the seed ideas for new conversations, creative possibilities, and collective action (see &#;Conversation as a Path to Large-Scale Change&#;). Today, especially with the advent of the Internet, we are becoming increasingly aware of the power and potential of these dynamic networks of conversation and their systemic importance for large-scale collaboration, learning, and change. The crosspollination of ideas from group to group can lead to the emergence of surprising creativity and focus as we discover innovative ways to support a &#;system thinking together.&#; What if we could create an intentional, simple, and effective approach for fostering greater collaborative learning and cohe Sign in
CONVERSATION AS A PATH TO LARGE-SCALE CHANGE