How to Run Fishbowl

Clarification Station

Fishbowls are one of our favorite formats to run a debrief in. Say we’ve just finished creating a list using Opposite Thinking for this prompt: What makes a bad facilitator?

Create a Fishbowl and have them discuss what we can learn from this list.

Representatives from Small Groups

Oftentimes when we split everyone into small groups, we might ask for a volunteer to share back. Rather than just go popcorn share through the representatives, you could ask for 4-5 representatives to form a Fishbowl and have discussion with each other.

Here’s an example of a time we did that recently in a workshop.

1. We had the full group do a Minute Paper on this prompt: How would you interrupt an over-talkative participant who is taking up too much space in the conversation? If you need to interrupt them, what words would you use to do that?
2. We had people form small groups and share what they had come up with.
3. After the discussions wrapped up, we asked for Fishbowl volunteers to share out for their groups.
4. In the Fishbowl, they discussed both their and their groups’ insights with each other, allowing for the full group to have access to more ideas while the discussion itself had fewer isolated shares than if we had asked for representatives from each group.

Expert Testimony

Fishbowl can also be great when you want to give the mic to a specific group of people within the workshop.

Example:

An office of 25 people is participating in a workshop. Only five of them have been with the organization for five or more years. Put those folks in a Fishbowl and give the prompt, “How have you seen the org change over the last five years? What do you hope this org is going to continue to grow into?”

OR bring in different levels on purpose! Have someone with five years, two years, one year, and the most recent hire have a discussion. Centering the non-experts is a great way to flip the perspective and bring new life into topics that are well-traversed by others in the room.