I appreciate the need to make certain that every voice is heard. Criminy, that’s my business…my passion! But there is a difference between having your voice heard and demanding that your voice be the one that’s heard EVEN IF it means that someone else doesn’t get to hear their voice on the microphone.
One woman in the room is pouting because I didn’t give her the microphone in a room of over 600 people with at least 1/3 of them dying to get on mike. Maybe it just shows that people don’t trust that the thoughts and ideas they write on the pages on their table will be incorporated into the thoughts and ideas that will propel the city forward.
Or maybe it shows how desperate people are to be heard. And it tells me that we have to be diligent in making sure that people ARE heard, that they KNOW they are heard, AND that they are willing to yield to make sure others get heard.
At the recent AmericaSpeaks project Our Budget, Our Economy National Town Meeting, a recorder at every table typed the ideas from the group into a wired laptop computer. The conversation at each table at six different locations across the country was captured immediately and sent to a central collection place – in this case, Philadelphia, the origination point. There was no attempt to capture a smattering of individual comments because of the impracticality. At best, we were able to isolate one person on mike and camera at each of the six sites who made a 2-3 sentence comment that was broadcast to the other sites, but the purpose was more about reminding ourselves that we were part of a NATIONAL conversation than to process what was being said or even to pretend that it reflected the consensus of the group. It was the presence of the computers at every table that gave assurance to the participants.
But that model is not practical for every circumstance. Would this event have been possible if the organizer had told the council that it couldn’t happen without 100 laptops? Doubtful.
So what’s something we can do to assure people that they are being heard in these large-scale forums?
And for me, the additional question is, “how can I adjust my attitude?”
hmm, I think that writing this blog just did that! Thanks for the therapy session.
UPDATE: In the next session I was able to get the mike to her. She was grateful and I joked that I try to please, but sometimes it takes a while. After the event, she thanked me and said that she remembered seeing me at the Angela Davis event. For a moment I thought about letting it slide – she seemed so happy that we were bonding. But I had to tell her it wasn’t me and that I live out of town. She seemed genuinely disappointed, perhaps because we probably won’t become friends. I was touched!