Sharing Withholds
Everybody – No Supplies – 15 Minutes
How to Run Sharing Withholds
- Have the group sit in a circle or an arrangement where everyone can see each other
- Introduce the structure
- Directions might sound like, “We’re going to take a minute to get into the concerns that we have around this project that we have been withholding from sharing with each other. The expectation is that everyone will share one concern from their own perspective using an ‘I’ statement. We are not going to react to each other’s thoughts. Even if you agree with someone, no piggy-backing, just say it again from your perspective.”
- Choose a volunteer to go first and then have everyone share in order of how they’re seated
- Continue around the circle until everyone has shared
Example & Prompt
Towards the end of the first day during a two-day leadership retreat, a discussion arises about an issue that hasn’t been brought up before regarding recent changes on the leadership team. You can tell there are a lot of things not being said around this recent change. You decide to address that using Sharing Withholds.
“We have been talking about some of the issues today that you’ve been facing and when the subject of change on the leadership team came up I felt a distinct shift in everyone’s energy. We’re going to spend the next 15 minutes talking about how the changes on the leadership team have been affecting you, and I’m most specifically interested in hearing what you haven’t shared or felt up for saying so far. We’re each going to share for one minute and if there is enough time at the end we can do a second round. We are NOT going to reply to each other (even in agreement), we are just going to use ’I’ statements to express ourselves.”
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