The Spaces in Between

Once you see something, you can’t unsee it.

I remember feeling that way after taking a beginner art class several years ago. The instructor encouraged us to look not at details, but at patches of dark and light in a landscape. That perspective was new to me, and it highlighted the spaces between things in new ways. I can’t not bring it to my awareness anymore.

That way of seeing has been relevant as I’ve thought about what a “good group” does. One thing is to work well in between meetings. Group members think about the project. They move deliverables forward. They follow up with one another. They make progress in the gaps.

I suspect you know what it feels like to turn up at a meeting where no one has thought about the project, much less done anything about it, since you were last together. Instead of building, momentum has to be created every time.

Too often as a designer of facilitated processes, I focus on the workshops rather than on the spaces in between the workshops as key elements in the project. Shifting my perspective would help me frame expectations differently for participants and would accelerate stuff getting done.