Facilitating Community Conversations — NIC’s Community Dialogue Series on Social Integration
MCCY hosted a series of dialogues as part of the National Integration Council (NIC) Engagement series, held in conjunction with NIC’s 10th anniversary in 2019. The theme for the celebration was, “Together in SG”. In the lead up to these celebrations, MCCY conducted a series of closed-door dialogue sessions in the community. Sequoia helped to design and facilitate a series of conversations to create a generative space for stakeholders who are involved in social integration efforts to reflect on the progress over the past 10 years, and begin a process of building a shared vision and networks to enable future collaboration on ground-up projects. Stakeholders representing various interests were invited into the room to be a part of the conversation to create clarity on the collective challenges, needs and aspirations of the community. Approximately 80 different organizations were a part of these conversations.
Dialogue 1 — Building Awareness and Aspirations
We used Appreciative Inquiry as a community engagement methodology to begin the process of building a shared vision for a Better Home that values diversity and inclusion. We invited participants to reflect on the norms and values we share to facilitate the integration of newcomers. These norms and values elucidated the principles of engagement; how we need to show up and engage with each other, in order to partner and transform our community. The sharing of high point moments also uncovered the collective dreams, strengths and the positive core of the community in building a better home. As the dream presentations saturated participants with ideas on what’s possible, we invited them to capture and harvest these high-potential ideas onto a Field of Opportunities canvas.
Dialogue 2 — Building Alignment and Accountability
Using Design Thinking as a community engagement methodology, we embarked on a process of clarifying how the best elements of our thinking could come to life in the community. In keeping with our engagement principle; people commit to what they help create, we invited participants to select and own an opportunity area that they felt most called to explore and serve. After rounds of dialogue participants moved to transform their ideas and concepts into testable models. They tested these low-resolution prototypes with others in the room, getting quick feedback on the desirability, viability and feasibility of these ideas and concepts. The energy in the room shifted as participants actively advocated for and pitched their ground-up-initiatives with enthusiasm and excitement. Building mind-share of project ideas also offered project hosts to build on each other’s ideas and identify partners for collaboration.
The process harnessed the collective wisdom and enthusiasm of the crowd through a voting process. Each participant was given three tokens to vote on the best initiatives in the room. The top three initiatives were presented at the large group level. Each winning group presented their aspirations statement and a vivid image of the future they were trying to create through their proposed initiatives. The session closed with participants commitment intention for next steps to advance their initiatives.
If you are looking for support on designing engagement processes that will generate enthusiasm, commitment and ownership for outcomes, please get in touch with us at enquiries@sequoia.com.sg.
The author is the founding director of Sequoia Group.
Contact: jacqueline.wong@sequoia.com.sg
