Another exercise for suspending is to use collaborative feedback. A group of people who have been working on something present the draft results to a second group. The second group gives feedback and asks questions. The first group must write down this feedback but must not give any answers at all. (Afterward the two groups switch roles, and then t

I have found Scharmer’s model to be particularly useful in its description of three specific practices for shifting from more closed to more open modes of talking and listening: suspending (opening your mind), redirecting (opening your heart), and letting go (opening your will).

Facilitators and participants cannot and need not always do things right the first time, but they do need to learn from what happens and find ways to do better the next time.

We can only relax if we are working in a context that enables us to loosen our grip on our habitual patterns of thinking, relating, and acting.

Relationships enable progress.

The key to advancing in the midst of such fear is summoning up the courage to relax enough to be able to adapt.

Suspending

Suspending is such an important practice for transformative facilitation that many of the exercises Reos uses in workshops are specifically designed to demonstrate and enable it. For example, we often ask participants to write their ideas on sticky notes, sheets of flip-chart paper, or a physical or virtual whiteboard, which can be easily viewed an

Playing also helps us relax our tight hold on our ideas. My colleague Ian Prinsloo, a former theater director, has taught me how valuable purposeful games and icebreakers can be because they reduce hierarchy and formality, which impede contribution, connection, and equity and therefore limit creative collaboration.