We were told that our light handed facilitation was much appreciated - giving space to explore and enjoy.

Then a break, followed by…

We chose this activity as a vehicle to illustrate some of the Gestalt concepts: a here and now exercise to experience our own reactions to change and how we react to others. Everyone was invited to choose one of the rooms in the House of Change to be in:

Room 1 Content - Complacency

Room 2 Denial - Denigration

Room 3 Confusion - Chaos

Room 4 Renewal - Revitilisation

A Room Group formed in each of the 4 corners of the cricket club. Once in the room each group explored what it is like to be in that place when their company is going through change: What were the typical behaviours, feelings and thoughts?

We worked in the groups then, as Julie noticed there was potentially a lot of debriefing to do, we went to lunch first, sitting outside on picnic tables in the sunshine.

After lunch, although Tony came in a bit heavy and repetitive with the structured explanation of how to debrief, the four groups got on and presented back entertainingly "in the style of" their room. Tony had been in the Contented group with Mark and Fiona and although they came up with the idea of singing "Don't worry, be happy", they realised this was far too enthusiastic for a complacent group and ditched the idea. During this the 4 groups attended to their reactions to the other 3, which further deepened awareness of what they were experiencing and how contact was being interrupted. (Fiona's account of the day gives a real sense of what this was like and how strangely the groups began to regard each other - as if tribes had formed, with highish trust inside and low trust between them).

The debrief generated a lot of thoughts and feelings within the group. Realisations, connections and confirmations abounded. There was a lot to say and more to be explored. "Change" rather than Gestalt became "figure" (ie. the subject of interest to the group) and time was given up to process this.

As facilitators we went with the group's energy rather than our earlier plan for the afternoon. Time was short and instead of forcing the group's pace to conform to the pre-set plan for the afternoon, we were noticing a continuing level of interest in the House of Change and that the group's "figure" had not yet been completed (see Energy graph in Wall of Wisdom). Later we learned that some had found this frustrating and wanted to move faster onto the experiments we had planned for after lunch.

Instead of the planned experiments, some live experiments developed in the group out of an interest in completing the House of Change" figure. We had been discussing what each group needed to move on, and an interest emerged in the Renewals meeting the Denials, to explore what would happen. The Denials were a difficult bunch, and the Renewals had already made themselves appear, let's say, from another planet. So live experiments in non-violent communication (Are you feeling… lonely? Do you need …. information?) did not start from an easy place or have the expected positive impact. The one to one at the bar in which a Renewal tried to make contact with a Denial, while productive on some level, also seemed a bit .. stuck? sticky? syrupy? inauthentic? And when Fiona waded in, in the style of Forum Theatre, to confront a Denial with the serious and dangerous truth about her predicament, this raised the stakes, the fear.. but also seemed direct, cutting through the deflections, getting to the issue. This led to a discussion of whether it is our role to do this, and whether the juicy case for change should already be out there, communicated by "the leadership" before we begin our work.

Individuals took risks, worked with high ambiguity, explored how to make contact in the here and now, helping us to understand and reframe the strong resistance, staying with what was, not what ought to be. It felt very real, and somewhat scary. The experiments illustrated for us quite vividly the five Interruptions to contact (see Wall of Wisdom):

Introjects: "I should" and "we ought" eg. The Confused group struggling to dig out of hole

Projections: "That lot are mad, damned arrogant..." etc eg. The Denial Group's view of the Renewal Group

Deflections: "It’s not an issue, I’m in a hurry..", looking at watch etc eg.The Contented Group's view of other 3 tribes

Retroflection: "I feel so guilty that I can’t help this person to move on" eg. The Renewals view of Denials, Confuseds view of Renewals

Confluence: losing a clear sense of self and other eg. everyone within their own tribe, and often in interactions between tribes

Suddenly the time had gone. It was ten to four. Julie described to Tony later how she became aware that needs had begun to diverge, and the "figure" was disintegrating. Her foot began twitching as if she was ready to stamp, and on the second or third twitch she stamped firmly on the ground and said "Right, it's time to call a halt, what do we still need to do?". Some people needed to leave and we even hadn’t yet moved into the afternoon's promised round of Gestalt experiments. And the need to bring the event itself to a close became the priority. Some who had to leave gave quick thanks and goodbyes and after a quick break those remaining reconvened in a circle to review the day.

We wanted to bring out that just as the Gestalt figure arises through Sensation, Awareness and Contact, the Gestalt figure will also be destroyed, as interest falls away. The reflection, learning and moving-on process at the end of the day enables what some call sense-making, and at this time, in order to move on we make sure there is no "unfinished business". But just as in real life workplace meetings, time becomes pressing and reflection seems a luxury - so our focus had disintegrated somewhat, we were into extra time and beyond a quick 15 minute review round we were maybe a bit too tired, and the need to get away was becoming urgent.

With hindsight we would have liked to devote a little more time to closure, but those remaining did spend 15 minutes and this was useful. Julie asked what do you feel or want to say and what do you need. As people spoke we noticed lots of excitement, appreciation that the facilitation was loose, that we were honest about our experience (and lack of it). The House of Change proved was more exciting that people had expected. The earlier Awareness experiments remained quite vivid. Some people wanted to come back for more experiments. A couple of people wished the afternoon had pushed on faster giving more chance to try out interventions, and felt frustration that the facilitators had not responded more immediately to this.

We were not completely sure if we had honoured those who had taken risks in the experiments, or allowed them to complete their process….and we have since checked this out with one or two and found we're/they're OK. We have since received some feedback from Mark Sinclair which also helps us know how the day has landed, at least with him (click here).

On reflection we realised that the tension between going with the flow and sticking to the plan could have been facilitated more openly. We made some judgements about the energy in the group and acted on them. We did not risk contact with the group around this issue. The learning we take from this is that in future we would chose to share our growing awareness of the time pressures with the group and re-contract. If there is still an interest in pursuing some Gestalt experiments we would be happy to create a follow up workshop with this as the focus.

Thank you to everyone who participated on the day the mix of challenge and support created an experimental opportunity for the two of us. We enjoyed the energy and the ambiguity and feel inspired to keep extending our expertise and application of Gestalt to our work.

June 2001