by John J. Walters<\/p>\n
I’ve been talking a lot about technology in my posts these past two weeks; when to use it and when not to use it.\u00c2\u00a0 This week, I thought I would take things back to the first post I wrote six weeks ago on the history of meetings.\u00c2\u00a0 There are things that we can learn from ancient cultures that will help us out today, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not just talking about weird medicinal herbs or mystical potions here.<\/p>\n
I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even remember the first time I heard about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the talking stick\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but I think it was from one my elementary school teachers.\u00c2\u00a0 If I remembered more specifically, I would name names, because whoever invented it was a genius and whoever told me about it was a saint.\u00c2\u00a0 I would love to give credit where credit is due, but both are too far in the past for me, its creator lost to history and its professor lost to other memories.<\/p>\n
The general idea of the talking stick is to encourage listening as well as talking — something that any experienced meeting attendee knows can be a difficult thing indeed.\u00c2\u00a0 The concept is simple.\u00c2\u00a0 At every meeting you have a stick.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be a large, ceremonial staff with intricate carvings or something as simple as a paper cup turned upside down with a smiley face drawn on it in magic marker. \u00c2\u00a0The only requirements are that it must be visible, and easy to pass around.<\/p>\n
When you hold the stick, you can speak.\u00c2\u00a0 When you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hold the stick, you listen.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to hold the stick, you raise your hand.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as simple and elegant as that, although you can introduce all kinds of other twists on it.\u00c2\u00a0 Below are a couple examples from my own experience:<\/p>\n
You can take this idea and run with it.\u00c2\u00a0 You can even claim that you invented it (although some people might have learned about it back in elementary school and call you out).\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve used this for meetings and even during family dinners.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be adapted to any situation that you think needs more listening and less interrupting.\u00c2\u00a0 Good luck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by John J. Walters I’ve been talking a lot about technology in my posts these past two weeks; when to use it and when not to use it.\u00c2\u00a0 This week, I thought I would take things back to the first post I wrote six weeks ago on the history of meetings.\u00c2\u00a0 There are things that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}