An interesting and thought provoking post by Johnnie Moore on Trust, Control, Power, Silence.

I’ve also been thinking / reflecting on this. You may have seen my last post on building trust in anecdote circles – use silence. To follow this further, I wondered what percentage of “turn-taking” facilitators have for different group processes. A facilitator takes a ‘turn’ whenever they make a spoken utterance in a group. The figure below shows some initial stats I have pulled together based on live transcript data for these facilitated processes.

The initial findings suggest:

• in more traditional group facilitation the facilitator takes a ‘turn’ speaking almost every second go (eg. Facilitator – Participant – Facilitator – Participant …)
• in a small anecdote circle (3–4 people) the facilitator takes a ‘turn’ speaking 3 out of every 10 times
• in a large anecdote circle (8–10 people) the facilitator takes a ‘turn’ speaking approximately 1 in every 10 times
• in open space (averaging it out) the facilitator takes a ‘turn’ approximately 1 in every 25 times

Thinking about empowerment and trust experienced in groups, I wonder whether there might be a trend towards less facilitator turn taking and greater trust and empowerment within groups?

What level of facilitator turn taking do you have?