Madeline Kleiner ’28 (DCI Fellow)
Starting my second semester of being a DCI Fellow, I felt more prepared. I had learned a lot from my first round of D Teams about including more people in the conversation, when to step in and when to let the conversation flow, and how to make people feel comfortable sharing their opinions. The second semester, though, a new measure was implemented that slightly changed how my facilitation occurred.
As anyone who was on a D Team this spring would know, there were two facilitators overseeing each session. One held the role of leading the conversation and making sure everyone gets a chance to speak, while the other took notes on the conversation and stepped in if another perspective was needed. Every DCI Fellow gets the chance to cover both roles, which is an interesting way to see both sides of a conversation.
The group I served as a secondary facilitator for was pretty varied in their perspectives so I didn’t feel the need to step in that way. Taking notes, though, was a very informative experience. I had never looked at the conversation before as having tangible outcomes, but the notes served as a physical output of the conversation. Taking the notes allowed me a chance to deeply listen to what every participant had to say and how that influenced their relationships and conversations with other deliberators. For my primary facilitation later in the week, it also gave me inspiration on how best to lead the conversation to make sure that every deliberator felt that they came away from the conversation with something.
As a primary facilitator, having a secondary facilitator in the room served as a support system. Yes, I knew that I was mainly supposed to be leading the discussion on my own, but having someone else in the room that could step in if I was struggling was comforting.
All this to say, in a deliberation it is totally okay to ask for help. Some conversations are really tricky and having another person in the room can be helpful for resolving conflict or if you’re nervous to cut off someone who’s been talking for a while. For conversations that are more one-sided in opinions, the secondary facilitator is also helpful for providing another perspective to the conversation.
Finally, this secondary facilitator is influential in providing a tangible output of the conversation. There are times, especially in longer conversations like D Team meetings that last for two hours, where it can feel like the group has been circling the same point for most of the conversation. Writing down and reading about the nuances and the specific opinions of each deliberator in a systematic way can help clarify the group’s main takeaways and areas where they both agreed and disagreed.
