We gathered community leaders and a remarkable diversity of storytellers, to use the "collective story harvest" method as a way to practice listening across differences. Part of the 2018 Pittsburgh Inclusive Innovation Week. A blog post describing the workshop in more detail is here: http://www.fitassociates.com/blog/listening-to-difference

1. Listening to difference,
made practical
Hannah du Plessis and Marc Rettig
2 April 2018
Welcome!
Get a cup of coffee,
find a table,
and please make a name tag
Name
Affiliation (optional)
Preferred pronoun

2. Listening to Difference, Made Practical
Marc Rettig and Hannah du Plessis, Fit Associates
fitassociates.com
marc@fitassociates.com
hannah@fitassociates.com
These notes were produced in support of a workshop conducted April 2, 2018
as part of Pittsburgh Inclusive Innovation Week. See weinnovationpgh.net for
more information.
© 2018, Fit Associates LLC
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike-4.0 International
License. You can copy and redistribute it, so long as you attribute credit to its authors and
offer what you make under the same license.
To view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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California, 94041, USA.

3. How might we
create a world
that works for all?
Briefly share why you care about this question

4. Principal
Professor, Design for Social Innovation
Adjunct Professor
Fit Associates
School of Visual Arts
Carnegie Mellon School of Design
hannah@fitassociates.com
@hannahdup

5. Principal
Professor, Design for Social Innovation
Adjunct Professor
Fit Associates
School of Visual Arts
Carnegie Mellon School of Design
marc@fitassociates.com
@mrettig

6. frontierretreat.com

7. We equip people with tools, methods
and practices that help them transform
their world
We teach
Individual transformation
Healthy relationships
Good gatherings, good facilitation,
and collaboration
We teach the fundamentals of
emergent change

8. Slides and more: bit.ly/Fit_ListeningWorkshop

9. Do your best to return to the present
Be mindful to include all voices
Keep the story teller’s stories
in confidentiality
As citizens of this experience, we ask you to

10. Thank you to
for sponsoring the
room and the breakfast
Tip o’ the hat to Jennifer Cloonan

11. “We’re on the same ship, but
we live on different decks”
Victor Lee Lewis

12. What would happen if you could strip
away all difference? At what point
will we show favoritism for the in-
group and bias towards the other?
Once our identity is tied to our group
membership, we tend to see other
groups as “lesser then”
Henri Tajifel
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Tajfel

13. “Oppression is the systematic and pervasive mistreatment
of individuals on the basis of their memberships in various
groups which are disadvantaged by the institutionalized
imbalances in social power in a particular society… It
includes the invalidation, denial, or the non-recognition of
the complete humanness (the goodness, uniqueness,
smartness, powerfulness, etc.) of those who are members
of the mistreated group.”
Oppression
www.unlearningracism.org/writings/lib_theory.htm

14. “It is possible to recover the buried memories of our
socialization, to share our stories and heal the hurts
imposed by the conditioning, to act in the present in
a humane and caring matter, to rebuild our human
connections and to change our world.”
Ricky Sherover-Marcuse
Liberation is possible …
www.unlearningracism.org/writings/lib_theory.htm

15. “If you have come here to help me, you are
wasting your time. But if you have come because
your liberation is bound up with mine, then let
us work together.”
Lilla Watson
Our liberation is tied together

16. The ideal: power to create is shared
James Charlton
“We know what is
best for us”

17. Approaches to power inequity within organizations
Exclusionary Neutrality
Adapted by AORTA from a handout from Leadership Development in Intergroup Relations/ Asian Americans Advancing Justice
Multi-
Culturalism
Cultural
Competency
Social
Justice

18. Stages in adult development
Unaware
Unable
Aware
Unable
Aware
Able
Unaware
Unable

19. Unaware
Unable
Aware
Unable
Aware
Able
Exclusionary Neutrality
Multi-
Culturalism
Cultural
Competency
Social
Justice
This method is great way to help people move

20. Experience is much
more transformative
than persuasion.
We find that

21. The key idea,
why it matters,
where it comes from.

22. 22
Same people, same space,
same conversation, same outcomes
The Office, NBC

23. 23
Different people? Different space?
Closed ears & hearts: same outcomes.
SAP

24. 24
We can’t mandate openness. We can’t
repeat our way to something new.
The Office, NBC

25. 25
What conditions open conversations,
loosen the old story, afford new outcomes?

26. How we
divide and
use time
Agreements about
speaking, listening,
deciding, and control
The space
and stuff in
the room
The way we
group ourselves
What conditions create more openness, make room for open
conversations, loosen the old story, afford new outcomes?
We can learn to use our ingredients differently:

27. A global community of people is exploring this.
Just two of many examples:
Liberatingstructures.comartofhosting.org

28. World Café

29. Story circles, reflection circles, “the circle way”

30. Situation Modeling

31. Collective Story Harvest

32. How can we focus a group’s attention on
stories that matter, and get the most from them?
Collective Story Harvest provides…
An easy-to-facilitate method for group listening
and sense-making
A fast way for many people in an organization or community
to get meaningful exposure to “others“ (and each other)
A way to get from stories to “so what”

33. Let’s try it.
We’ll describe how it works.
Then we’ll introduce our topic question,
and four guest storytellers.
We’ll take 3 minutes to capture our assumptions
about the topic question,
then do the “Collective Story Harvest.”
(with a short break partway through)
When it’s over, we’ll reflect on the experience,
talk about its usefulness, and answer questions.

34. Here’s how it works… Short introduction
to our stories…
Got it!
First stage: all together

35. Once upon a time,
there was…
Second stage: small groups
Environment
Relationships
Emotions
…with “listening lenses”

36. Four story groups will be going on at the same time.

37. The listening lenses
Key moments: decisions, conflicts,
learning, resisting, letting go, resolving,
persisting, giving up,….
Relationships: other people in the
story: their perceptions, actions, and
words
Inner experience: emotions, beliefs,
mood. Capture the inner ups and
downs of the story.
Environment: places, objects, systems,
interfaces, policies, infrastructure,….

38. Listeners…
• Please listen and take notes according to the
instructions on your listening lens worksheet.
• Hold questions until the end of the story.
Of course it’s okay to ask the teller to repeat
something you didn’t understand, or to explain an
unusual word. But let’s do our best to let the person
tell their story with minimal interruption.
• Give the gift of your full attention.
Catch yourself being distracted? No worries.
Just notice it, take a breath, and come back to
what’s happening.

39. Let me clarify…
Emotions? Environment?
Relationships?
After the story, a chance to ask questions

40. After a break: lenses get together, with a job to do
Emotions…Emotions…Emotions…Emotions… Environment…Environment…Environment…Environment… Relationship…Relationship…Relationship…Relationship…

41. Finally we’ll all get together again.
Environment! Relationship!Emotions!
What did we learn?

42. What are the things that help people feel
they truly belong in the city? What things
are in the way? What moves us toward the
feeling of true belonging?
Our question

43. Tell a story about a time when a service, a
system or design in the city of Pittsburgh
failed to meet your needs. It might have
worked for some, but not for you.
The story request

44. A note of importance about the way
we choose to make these spaces.
Trust is fragile.
When there is an imbalance of power…

45. Let’s meet our storytellers
Michelle
King
Vanessa
Braun
Idasa
Tariq-
Wessell
Ahmed
Ansari

46. What are your assumptions?

47. Story time.
15 10 5 3 2 1

48. Questions?
Discussion?
10 5 3 2 1

49. Break time!
We start again at ____

50. Welcome back.
Sit with your
lens-brothers
and sisters.

51. Common barriers
Common helps
Top three things you want
to report to the room
You have 15 minutes. Your job is to identify…
(If it helps, notice where your assumptions need
adjusting, or were just plain wrong.)
15 10 5 3 2 1

52. Key moments
What showed up?

53. Inner experience
What showed up?

54. Relationships
What showed up?

55. Environment
What showed up?

56. Storytellers
What showed up?

57. What struck you?

58. Let’s talk about the
method and the big
picture.

59. A story

60. The gathering
A “diagonal group”
Diverse vertically: levels of power
Diverse horizontally: many depts. and functions
Diagonal groups, gathering, and sequencing participatory efforts interest you?
You might like Marc Rettig’s three part series (diagonal groups are in part 2):
www.fitassociates.com/blog/participation-series/

61. The key activity: Collective Story Harvest
Mean to animals, for decades
Collects animals, over-loves
City official who “gets the call”
Rehabilitates animals

63. The empathy map canvas:
medium.com/the-xplane-collection/updated-empathy-map-canvas-46df22df3c8a

68. Many ways to use this method
Gather people from across a system to harvest deeply from
many points of view.
Harvest your own organization’s stories for learning, team
building, group memory, informing strategy, etc.
Use story harvest between different parts of the same
organization that don’t really see or hear each other.
Harvest stories to inform a new effort or practice.
Periodic harvesting as part of a “developmental evaluation”
approach—use stories to help you ask, “Are we on the right
track? What adjustments should we make?”

69. What do you need to do this?
You’ve listened to the system, community, organization well
enough to inform an invitation that matters to the mix of
people you’d like to have in the room.
A little capacity to host a group of people, to make the
space for listening, to let go of control and let the
conversation do the work.
A sense of the stories and storytellers that will open the
conversation, challenge the long-repeated story, bring a
dose of real life to the gathering.
Be just a shade braver than a meeting planner.

70. Making this method your own
Curate the stories
Do your homework to bring in stories worth hearing. Use this to
hear voices from the fringes, to dig into challenging questions,
or to get compelling stories to be really heard by stakeholders.
Customize the lenses
Ask, “What do we most want to learn from these stories?” Then
create your lenses accordingly.
Trust the process
Don’t over-coach the story tellers. They just tell their story. The
listeners will catch what matters.
Don’t let the conversation flinch from the hard stuff
There may be challenging views or disconfirming data. Go there.

71. Thank you.
Marc Rettig
marc@fitassociates.com
@mrettig
Hannah du Plessis
hannah@fitassociates.com
@hannahdup