First Friday if each month I meet with 5 women in a cafe in town for two hours. We are all women on the feminine awakening journey and we all have our own business.
When I meet with them I tap into my extended brain. I have 20 minutes to brainstorm about an issue. It can be what title to choose for my new DVD, it can be an issue with employees, it can be how to set up a blog etc.Then 6 brains work on the topic and it as we tapping into a “super brain”!
For me it has meant the world to have this group, I have had practical outcome from it, beyond my dreams.
Here is how you can create you own extended brain:
1) find 3-5 other women to play with. Women who wants to expand and share their gifts to the world.
2) Decide on a place and time to meet. Stick to the same time and day every month.
3)Divide the time you have on how many you are. One woman keeps time.
4) One woman share what she wants to focus on, what she wants feedback/advice/brainstorm on. about 5 minutes
5) The remaining of this woman’s time, go around the circle, one woman at the time offer what she wants to offer. You can open for more open brainstorm after that if there is still time.
6) Go around the circle until everybody have had their turn. One woman can choose to use shorter time, if she doesn’t have much going on at the moment.
Enjoy!
With extended love
chameli
Hi Chameli,
This sounds like a really excellent process! Would you be interested in a couple of ideas to add to it, to try out and play with?
Cheers
Mark
(Slightly concerned at posting here due to lack of femininity…;-)
of course your ideas are welcome!
thank you for sharing
greetings
chameli
OK, here are a few ideas which may be fun to play with… This is a process we call Solution Focused Reflecting Team, which seems to me to be very coherent with your extended brain.
1) First person (the ‘Presenter’) presents their issue/question/whatever as succinctly as possible (maybe 2 minutes)
2) The others get a chance to ask clarification questions to build a shared understanding (up to 8 minutes, but very likely less…whatever it takes) This helps the rest of the group get active with the topic and build up ideas for…
3) Affirms: Each team member offers an affirm to the Presenter – something they are impressed with about how the Presenter is handling the situation so far.
4) Reflections: The Presenter moves their chair back a little from the group, takes a pen & paper and is listens SILENTLY. The group go around and offer one idea/thought/musing/metaphor/whatever at a time, in strict order (so everyone gets equal opportunity). Building on ideas is encouraged. A team member may say ‘Pass’ if they have nothing to add, and may come back in on the next round. This continues until the time slot is up or everyone has passed. The pace often slows and becomes more reflective during this phase – lovely creative energy. There may be several rounds, so everyone gets to put it in several ideas/angles.
5) The Presenter rejoins the group, thanks everyone and reflects on what they might do next (1 minute).
The point about the Presenter listening silently is very important in this format imho – it’s not a discussion, and to enter into discussion in the reflection phase seems to lose a lot of the momentum.
Maybe you might like to give it a try some time? And let us know how you get on?
Cheers
Mark
BTW I should have said, we do this in about 20 minutes. You might find a little longer beneficial while the group gets used to the process – 30 minutes should be ample.
hi Mark, thank you so much for this
the process you describe reminds me about a structure we call the women’s council. It has this same step of listening to the others reflecting about the issue.
I love the affirm step
I will share this with a face book group, called women in business, and will inform about your website
thank you again
chameli