Reflections on Feb '25 Warmer Voices Experience

After a few trial balloons last fall, we held our first Warmer Voices session on Feb 3rd. It is a "warm data" space *.?

The sessions are led from a small core of co-hosts and co-creators formed and that allows shared and stealth-style facilitation. This collective approach is not just pragmatic, it is essential to the experience and mimics natural systems more closely than an orchestrated event.?

It is fair to think of the session design as having a very minimalist structure that is spontaneously responded to by those who show up. The content is not 'brought' by the hosts/stealth facilitators - but by the attendees. ?The hosts' jobs are then more about setting the tone and modeling the relationships in the cadence of noticing and responding which populates and peppers the space.?

One of the highlights of this session was the way that the hosting/facilitating team swarmed to contribute and prepare. All went well because all were well-considered.?

This is what happened?

Attendees were introduced in the waiting room to a new welcome image, that introduced some assumptions that are both the glue and the movement in the session.?

Mark de Jeu was the first human face, he welcomed all to the session with a calm and open vibe. ?

I took the hosting 'mc' role, where my job is to bring the attendees into the process and set some expectations for how the session was structured, and where the content was from (them!). ?I will listen to the recording to reflect on doing any of this better.?

Then the session opened for good with a brief story, which serves as the spark or the first domino if dominos work stochastically. :-) ?Dave?Fearon's story hit the mark. His observations of an elderly couple in the oncology waiting room showed the kind of attentive noticing that invites us into the present moment.

Then the bowlful of the session began with three rounds of small groups who noticed what was evoked from the story (or was tangential to it) - in themselves, in others, and from lateral perspectives that are afforded for each group. ?John?Hibbs was a courageous 'zoom meister' for these rounds.??

Finally, we all return as one group and continue this cadence of opening, noticing and responding.?

This was my experience

Dave did a yeoman's job with his story, we were connected with the moments and the moments held the content, not the narrator. ?What I noticed was the care and kindness that the older couple had for each other, knowing exactly what each was experiencing and responding. ?

Noticing, responding and kindness were the doors that opened - each with a unique aspect as each person shared what was emerging for them.?

It is not unusual for the small group to start with niceties, but we quickly began to share our experience of that story and what threads that led us to. My sense is that in the early rounds, especially, what springs up from our noticing fills the time with a continuing sequence of threads, leading to other threads. The lateral moves to other perspectives in our list of 'contexts' sometimes lead to surprises, but as often the diversity in the people ise surprising and insightful enough.?

I especially recall John?Varney 's observation that (in his story) Dave did not respond, but just noticed and that led to the various ways that we can respond that are not as overt as a movement or a word. ?That led to the power of being seen and the way that we communicate by our regard and perhaps just the energy we hold can come across to others.?

I recalled two stories of my own where I noticed someone and some situation that called for kindness. In one I was too busy, a bit intimidated and maybe not valuing another person as I should have and I walked past that older woman laboring with her groceries in the rain without an umbrella. The noticing was good. The response was not. On the other, I noticed the older couple struggling with the high curb, the wife struggling to walk at all. I gave them each a hand up and they were so appreciative.

The lesson is that kindness is its own reward.

The lesson is that our response can be implicit, and still conveyed and received.

The lesson is that opening doors in our awareness is amplified and richer by others opening doors.

Practitioners notes.

• All-in-all the 90 minute format worked just fine.?
• The "Prometheus set" of contexts (which intentionally differs from the "Bateson Set") was not disruptive, and the jury is out on their final form or use.?
• The hosting team, the invisible facilitators, were great with the luxury of practice and coaching.?
• Since the attendees were all civil and open and curious, the positive energy was there and there were no negatives to test our soft facilitation.?

*The style and structure of the session is directly derivative to Nora Bateson's Warm Data Lab/People Sessions but adapted and evolved in some small ways.?