Tomorrow is our mid year review of how we are going here at Brighton.
I find I often get anxious about these types of days because its easy to be negative and see all that’s not happening, or to focus on the struggles, rather than to see where God is at work and where the possibilities are.
I am by nature an optimist and dreamer so my hope is we will finish tomorrow with a sense of anticipation and hope and celebration. One of our team was due to run this day, but recent illness has meant she hasn’t been able to do it. Normally I like to particpate in this stuff rather than facilitate it, but its probably easiest if I just pick this up and run with it.
Over the week the team have been reflecting on a series of evaluative type questions that will form the basis for our conversation tomorrow. We won’t be working thru the answers, but they will be the fodder for the exercise.
I’ll be using De Bono’s 6 thinking hats as a tool to help us move thru different stages of reflection in a healthy way. The balance in the hats will help us address what needs to be addressed but also look positively ahead.
The plan is something like this:
* Read Joshua 4 – passage about remembering and passing on story.
* Discuss our sense of calling. I believe it is vital for us to come back to this regularly and ask each other, are we still supposed to be here (individually) and are we supposed to be as a team?
* Explain the Six Thinking Hats as a frame for review rather than problem solving* Define the 6 different hats and what they mean (in this order)
White – facts, information, data
Red – feelings, intuition, gut sense, God speaking, frustrations, passionate feelings,
Black – problems, disappointments, failures
Yellow – wins, achievements, joys
Green – possibilities, opportunities, hope, new directions
Blue – directional, oversight
* Work thru the hats as a large group – reflecting on each hat for ourselves and for the team. Write thoughts on butcher’s paper around the room.
* Pay Attention – from the ‘hats’ conversation summing up what we need to pay attention to (also on Butcher’s paper):
Issues to address
Possibilities to pursue
* Learnings(butcher’s paper)
2 things you have learnt this year so far
Summary (butcher’s paper)
A sentence to sum up what you feel from today
Will it work?…
I dunno. I’ll tell you how it goes!
Do butchers actualy use that paper?… Seems plenty of other people do…
Update: This process was very effective in keeping a balanced approach and also cutting to the chase. We spent 5 mins on each ‘hat’ and that seemed to be long enough. We do need to take more time however to decide on ‘action’ from the review.