
		The Clean Café - with Marian Way

	The great thing about our venue is the flexibility we have to set the room up any way we want it. So for tonight we set it up to be a Cafe. Marian brought some table clothes, coloured pens and we spread a piece of flipchart paper on each table for scribbling, drawing, writing and doodling. As you can see it was very welcoming!

There’s more ‘shake’ on this photo than I would like. It must have been the excitement of anticipation or possibly the five trips up the stairs with the books!

Marian was picking up from our February meeting with Bernie and adding to the thought process of making a difference to our world by combining the structure of ‘The World Cafe’ with the power of ‘clean language’. Or particularly ‘clean questions’. Once we were all sitting comfortably Marian explained how the fusion was going to work.
For our starting point she produced copies of two of the flipcharts Bernie had drawn for our Feb gig.


	The World Café is a simple process for bringing people together around questions that matter. Devised by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, it replicates what happens in real life when people get together in cafs: they sit and talk about issues and then carry their insights into future conversations. You can find out more about the World Cafe here: http://www.theworldcafe.com


		Read about ‘clean language’ here:- http://www.apricotisland.com/articles/2007/1/3/what-is-clean-language.html

	The ‘chunking up and down’ picture provided us with a reminder that we often operate at only one level. Moving up or down can often provide new insights and aha moments.It also combined ‘one to one’ of ‘clean’ with ‘community’ of ‘world cafe’.


	The ’jigsaw’ contained items culled from a newspaper and provided the ‘content’ for our evening’s start.


	Marian then introduced us to the ‘clean questions’ and the protocol for ‘clean listening’. This was a fundamental part of the evening and I’m sure accounted for the real progress made on every table and by the whole group through the evening. Here are the questions for you to use in your own ‘clean cafe:-


	What would you like to have happen? Is there anything else about that? And what happens next? And that’s like what? And whereabouts / where? And what hapened just before / just after? What kind of? Is there a relationship between _ and _?


	Opening question Develops 1st thought Moves through time Invites a metaphor Locates in space More time shifts Develops metaphor Links symbols

The protocol of our conversations was also very important. We were four to a table, and one person went first. One of the other three asked the opening question and the ‘talker’ chose whatever of the subjects on the flip drew his / her attention. The job of the other three was to pay exquisite attention to the speaker, not to interrupt, and to use the clean questions to help the speaker explore their deeper understanding of the topic. As soon as possible to help the speaker move into metaphor to describe their thoughts and inner landscape. For some it was a real struggle not to ‘argue’, add in comments or just plain take over! For each speaker it was an opportunity to take some time exploring thoughts and being valued and listened to. We each had a turn at being the speaker and at the end of our turn we were asked by the others on the table to draw or write the essence of our thoughts in some way on the tablecloth (flipchart paper). When we had all had our say we pulled together our joint thoughts to produce an essence for our table, and added that to the paper.


	I’m not sure when we took the break, let’s pretend it was about here!

Once we had ‘our essence’ it was time for a move. One person stayed at the table and the other three all moved to another table. So now we had four people from four different tables at each table!
Now we took the conversation to the next level as we each explained what had happened at the first table. Some of us used clean questions to elicit more, some of us found that too difficult this time and did our best to create ‘clean listening’ instead. After all four had had their say and been listened to it was time to pull together the threads on each table, which in all cases was based on four tables worth of work. A new essence emerged and Marian then pulled together the seven tables and summarised on one flip the essence of the essence of all our essences! Spookily there was a lot of synergy. I’ve captured as many of the ‘jottings’ as I can and they appear on the next page as thumbnails, click on the first one and you can scroll through them all if you like. On 5 out of 7 tables the word ‘communication’ appears on the table sheet! Jottings

The final flip.
What would you like to have happen?

Critical mess to Critical mass!

Harness individuals responsibility.

Insular individual to resposibility & respect.

Isolated technology & materialism to messages delivered and received + improved equilibrium.

“Little weed” (The Flower Pot Men) (this is a metaphor) is unable to move, static. Yet belief can make the difference.

Honest communication, including with self.

Taking responsibility, empowering self to empower others.

The message of the evening for me? We can all make a difference. Every one of us by taking responsibility for ourselves our actions and our communications. As NLPers we are uniquely placed to help each other and the wider world through our learning and our skills. Bernie began this in February in the year when the theme is “NLP in the REAL world”. Marian has certainly taken this forward.
The other great learning for me was the power of this technique for workshops, in house trainings and group seminar work.
Thank you Marian for a great evening which I hope left everyone feeling empowered to move the world.

Marian Way
Marian uses Clean Language (and another ‘clean’ technology, Clean Space) with individual clients, couples and groups. She designs and runs clean-based workshops (Discover Your Assertive Self and Discover Your Creative Self) and runs Clean Language trainings. She has also used The World Cafe process with great success to help groups to formulate their ideas and take action. Her website is:-
www.apricotisland.com

The final flip.What would you like to have happen?

The final flip.
What would you like to have happen?