exercise · all tools
Listening to Pause
A team dialogue structure built on deliberate silence: each person speaks for the same fixed time (e.g., five minutes); after each speaker, the group holds about a minute of pause before anyone responds. In the pause, listeners notice how the words landed in them and from which of Scharmer's four levels they were listening (downloading, factual, empathic, generative) — shifting the group from reaction to response.
- The pause will feel awkward at first — the host's steadiness in protecting it is the whole intervention
- Equal time is structural fairness; do not let senior voices reclaim the pause
Practical
- Time
- 30-60 min
- Group
- 3–12 · small-group
- Settings
- in-person, online
- Materials
- Timekeeping; agreed speaking order
- Mechanisms
- dialogic-encounter, stillness-silence, open-awareness
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- drive.google.com/file/d/1I0ThTPl75h3M6iLzZ7KgYOsiLcrZw3Bw/view — IDG Phase 2 Research Report & Toolkit (2022), open
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
- Licence
- No named licence; published in the IDG Phase 2 report by an initiative that describes itself as open source — see source record
Source link not checkable automatically — the page renders in the browser rather than in the response; last read by hand 28 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Vivianna Rodriguez Carreon (Phase 2 Toolkit codification) — Inspired by Dadirri — deep listening as taught by Aboriginal Elder Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann (Ngangikurungkurr, Northern Territory) — joined with Otto Scharmer's four levels of listening (Theory U)
Dadirri is a way of life of specific Aboriginal peoples, not a workshop technique; this exercise is inspired by it and facilitators should name that origin with respect, pointing to Ungunmerr-Baumann's own teaching (https://www.miriamrosefoundation.org.au/dadirri) rather than claiming to teach Dadirri.
In this directory via IDG Phase 2 Research Report & Toolkit (2022)
A rare holding-1 tool that reliably upgrades meeting quality: the structure does the facilitation. The Phase 2 card maps it to Appreciation and Connectedness; this record leads with Communication Skills for the trained behaviour, keeping the relational skills as secondary.
status: checked · added 2026-08-25