3Practice Circles
The 3Practices
Late one night in a Central-California hotel, a traveling salesman invited us to join him for a beer.
“Where you from?” he asked.
“Pacific Northwest,” we said.
“So … Democrats, then,” he replied. Satisfied he’d gathered, in a single question, all the evidence he needed to size us up as ideological opponents, he changed the subject to sports.
This is the spirit of the age, nicely summed up by The Onion headline:
“STEREOTYPES ARE A REAL TIME-SAVER”
Of course they are. Because, honestly, who has the time, let alone the need for real conversations when simpleminded stereotypes will do?
Who indeed….
The 3Practices emerged as a feat of reverse-engineering. Over decades, we observed, and eventually described and named the habits of people who cross the difference divide — repeatedly and on purpose. Not only do these people have time for real conversations, they’ve decided they don’t have time anymore for conversations that aren’t real.
In 2017, we started leading 3Practice Circles, first in Seattle, then across the country, in order to prove that it’s possible to have substantive, civil conversations with ideological opponents.
We lead Open 3Practice Circles where anyone is welcome, and we lead Sponsored 3Practice Circles for businesses, civic groups, religious organizations, colleges and universities.
We train others to lead 3Practice Circles, too, because we can’t be everywhere … nor do we need to be. When people see what goes on in a 3Practice Circle, some of them think, I could learn to do that. Yes, they could … and can … and do.
PRACTICE 0NE
I’ll be unusually interested in others.
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
— Simone Weil
In 3Practices, we learn to begin our questions with the words, “I’d be curious to know….” Because, if we’re not genuinely curious, why bother asking?
Think about the times when you’ve been on the receiving end of positive, specific, welcome attention … the sort of attention that made you feel in that moment like the most important person in the room — because someone asked a question in a way that made you the only person who could answer it.
Most of us don’t have an overabundance of such memories to draw on, which is why the ones we have tend stay with us forever — a teacher who encouraged us, a friend’s parent who made us feel welcome, a college roommate who introduced us to her friends — all filed away in a mental folder titled “Impossible To Forget.”
PRACTICE TWO
I’ll stay in the room with difference.
“When you discover I voted for the wrong person, does that mean we have to break up?”
Imagining and practicing fresh ways of crossing the Difference Divide — and living to tell about it — is what the 3Practices are all about.
If we had to reduce the 3Practices to one idea, it’s probably this: Learn what you need to learn so you can practice staying in the room with difference.
Just a glance at the cultural landscape is likely to make people feel a little unsteady on that proposition. Staying in the room with difference is what folks are learning to avoid through the isolation of made-to-order social media echo chambers. It’s part of what 3Practice Circles help people unlearn.
PRACTICE THREE
I’ll stop comparing my best with your worst.
“I don’t have the time to get to know every person I encounter in the course of my daily life. So thank goodness I have a handy little device at my disposal that helps me know how to deal with just about anyone I come across: stereotypes. Yes, stereotypes are a real time-saver!”
— Wallace Rickard . The Onion
3Practice Circles close with an invitation to thank someone in the circle. People often express gratitude for the courteous, thought-provoking questions they were asked. Some go a step farther — like the man who ended his thank-yous by saying, “I realized during this group that I sometimes think things are facts that might not actually be facts at all. I need to think about that more.”
Listening to another person describe what they see, maybe dawns on us that, just as they’re not seeing what we see, we’re not seeing what they see.
Which is a useful reminder that what two individuals see depends in part on where they’re standing — and raises the possibilities that 1) neither may have a perfectly unobstructed view, and 2) one may have a clearer view or a better angle than the other.
3Practice Circles
The spaces where we meet to practice the 3Practices — online and in-person — are called 3Practice Circles
In the beginning, 3Practice Circles were conceived as civic engagements where people who were angry and afraid about politics, race, religion, immigration, gender, equity — all of it — could gather to talk about those matters in a civil and substantive way.
Then folks started talking about how all that fear and anger splashed over into their businesses, organizations, and institutions at a scale they’d never seen before.
In the beginning … before it was unsafe to meet in-person, we led 3Practice Circles in Seattle and here and there across the country — including 3Practice Fishbowls at events where six or eight people in the Circle were surrounded by dozens, sometimes hundreds who were watching and learning from the process.
Then, with everything shut down, we moved 3Practice Circles online and, suddenly, people were showing up from all over — to talk about cultural hot topics, yes … but also on topics with clear connections to how we conduct our organizations, institutions, and businesses. Topics like:
“Is toxic leadership learned? Can it be unlearned?” … “That’s when I quit…” … "White people want to talk about cancel culture … Black, Indigenous, People of Color already had their cultures canceled in North America, right?" … "University Student Athletes - Commodity? Partners? or …?" … "Are there unearned privileges that come with waking up white in America?" … “Who are they, and what are you afraid they’d do if they thought they could get away with it?” … “Toxicity: Culture or Leader? You tell me.”
The application to questions of inclusion, diversity, equity, sexual harassment, workplace bullying and dispute resolution are obvious.
3Practice Circle rules are simple because the work is hard
A Framing Question like the ones above sets the agenda. As far as we’re concerned, nothing is off limits.
Nobody has to say anything in a 3Practice Circle.
A volunteer takes up to two minutes to speak their mind in response to the Framing Question. Everyone else listens carefully.
Anyone in the Circle may ask a Clarifying Question that begins with "I’d be curious to know…" The questions have to begin that way because a 3Practice Circle is a workout. Learning to think in terms that express unfeigned curiosity trains us for day-to-day encounters where genuine curiosity is generally in short supply.
The volunteer has up to one minute to respond to each Clarifying Question.
Questioners are permitted one followup to their Clarifying Question.
A Referee keeps time, helps people who need a little help finding the language for their Clarifying Question, calls fouls if someone plays dirty, and generally keeps things safe and fair.
When the moment is right, the Ref invites another volunteer to take two minutes on the Framing Question, — followed by a round of Clarifying Questions … then another … and another.
Each Circle concludes with Thank-yous from anyone to anyone else who has asked a thoughtful question, expressed a novel idea, made a good point, or demonstrated patience, clarity, kindness, generosity, passion, courage, or civility.
More recently we’ve tested the 3Practice Circle model as a means to increase the depth and breadth of organizational intelligence in decision-making.
A lot of decision-making is in trouble before it begins because there are perverse incentives for stakeholders in one silo to hold out on the rest.
3Practice Decision Circles harness the power of 3Practice rules to get at the sort organizational intelligence that’s often obscured by group-think, mission drift, bad or incomplete information, irrelevant power struggles, and simple blind spots.
Decision Circles ensure that every point of view can be heard and explored through the shared knowledge and wisdom of the whole team asking Clarifying Questions about the strengths, weaknesses, risks, costs, and potential rewards of each proposal. And it all happens faster and with more — and more useful — input than most conventional decision protocols.
Our very first Decision Circle was in a 501(c)3 with a practical staffing question:
“Going forward, should this executive position be filled by a staff member, whose alignment with our organizational ethos is established, or should the position be filled by a subject matter expert, whose professional competence is established?”
In an hour-long meeting governed by 3Practice Circle rules, the decision-makers gathered unvarnished operational intelligence from across, up, and down the organization chart. For that hour, the softest voices were amplified to the same level as the loudest … the introverts took up as much space as the extroverts … line employees, managers, and strategists were on equal footing for the duration of the Circle.
What would you pay — if you could get it — for internal business intelligences at that scale?