Objective:
To allow participants to practise their listening skills, and to experience how powerful uninterrupted thinking can be in generating creative solutions to problems.
Overview:
This activity can be used in different scenarios, to solve problems, help resolve conflict as well as to fuel creativity. It progresses ideas. Timed uninterrupted talking can be a successful way to plan a new project or search for new ideas or to explore a topic.
This approach works as it provides the freedom of knowing you won't be interrupted, while also having a short, mutually agreed amount of time to think out loud. Ideas can be cross-fertilised without stopping the other person's thinking. Ideas are developed fast this way.
Activity:
In pairs (or 3s), invite participants to talk about a specific subject, or think about a specific issue. For example, participants creating their own business could be invited to think about their customers – who are they? and the benefits of their product / design / service / what difference will your product / design / service make to them? The goal is to come up with a long list of potential customers and be able to clearly articulate the benefits they can offer.
Give clear instructions to:
- Set a timer for 3 minutes.
- Take turns talking, 3 minutes each. Repeat this process for as much time as available. At least 3 times each – 3 x 6mins = 18mins.
- Pay attention to what the other person is saying.
- Not interrupt each other or take over each other's turn.
- If not all the time is needed in one turn, it can be saved for that participant’s next turn.
- Stop talking the instant the timer goes off.
Encourage participants to:
- Remember that there is a customer / benefit / idea neither of you has yet thought of that will be better than you can come up with on your own.
- Focus on finding good potential customers and identifying clear benefits, not on coming up with the longest list.
- Keep eye contact with the other person when they are speaking.
- Concentrate on listening; try not to think about what you or they will say next.
- Remember how each other’s experience is valuable.
- Be fascinated by the other person's mind at work.
- Smile once in a while (appropriately).
- Avoid saying things you will regret.
At the end of the allocated time, confirm your key customers and the benefits you can offer them.
Come back together as a group to reflect on the process;
- Did you come up with new ideas of who you want to talk to? How to describe the benefits or difference your product / design can make?
- Did you find it easy to focus and concentrate on what the other person was saying?
- Did you think about what you would say when the other person was talking?
- Do you think this was a useful exercise? Why have you given the answer you have?
The chosen issue or topic is flexible – it could be subject specific, and the approach used to demonstrate or exchange knowledge; to make introductions or build relationships so that participants talk about themselves; to solve problems where participants are invited to think about a particular issue.
Skill Development:
This activity raises awareness and understanding of the important of effective listening and demonstrates the level of information that can be shared, knowledge exchanged in a short period of time.
It provides an opportunity for participants to practice concentrated listening and uninterrupted conversations.
It encourages participants to reflect on their own conversation practices and assumptions.
Resources:
Phone / timer as a way to give each other approximately equal turns.
References:
Adapted from the work of Nancy Kline, Time to Think (1999) and More Time to Think (2009)