Research Catalog

Title

The World Café : shaping our futures through conversations that matter / Juanita Brown with David Isaacs and the World Café community.

Author

Brown, Juanita, 1944-

Publication

San Francisco, CA : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, c2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Isaacs, David, 1938-

Description

xiii, 242 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

"The World Cafe is a flexible, easy-to-use process for fostering collaborative dialogue, sharing mutual knowledge, and discovering new opportunities for action. Based on living systems thinking, this innovative approach creates dynamic networks of conversation that can catalyze an organization's or community's own collective intelligence around its most important questions." "Filled with stories of actual Cafe dialogues in business, education, government, and community organizations across the globe, this uniquely crafted book demonstrates how the World Cafe can be adapted to any setting or culture. Examples from such varied organizations as Hewlett-Packard, American Society for Quality, the nation of Singapore, the University of Texas, and many others, demonstrate the process in action." "Along with its seven core design principles, The World Cafe offers practical tips for hosting "conversations that matter" in groups of any size - strengthening both personal relationships and people's capacity to shape the future together."--Jacket.

Subject

• Communication
• Communication in social action
• Conversation > Social aspects
• Group facilitation
• Social Change
• Social Facilitation
• World café

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-235) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Foreword : we can be wise only together / Margaret J. Wheatley -- Introduction : beginning the conversation : an invitation to the World Cafe -- Ch. 1. Seeing the invisible : conversation matters! -- Ch. 2. Conversation as a core process : co-creating business and social value -- Ch. 3. Principle 1 : set the context -- Ch. 4. Principle 2 : create hospitable space -- Ch. 5. Principle 3 : explore questions that matter -- Ch. 6. Principle 4 : encourage everyone's contribution -- Ch. 7. Principle 5 : cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives -- Ch. 8. Principle 6 : listen together for patterns, insights, and deeper questions -- Ch. 9. Principle 7 : harvest and share collective discoveries -- Ch. 10. Guiding the Cafe process : the art of hosting -- Ch. 11. Conversational leadership : cultivating collective intelligence -- Ch. 12. The call of our times : creating a culture of dialogue -- Epilogue : how can we talk it through? / Anne W. Dosher -- Afterword : discovering the magic of collective creativity / Peter M. Senge.

ISBN

1576752585

LCCN

• ^^2004062386
• 9781576752586

OCLC

56876852

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library