An Experiment in Deep Listening and Co-Creation: Reflecting on a Confluence Session

As participants arrived at our session, “Co-imagining a Reparative Economy,” Stevie Wonder’s song “As” played in the background. My co-facilitator, Donna Daniels of Heron Foundation, and I invited them to sit in a large circle. The session’s title frequently prompted the inquiry, “What is a reparative economy?” from folks as they trickled in. Our reply, “Yes, what is it?” set the tone for the type of conversations we envisioned.

We began by immediately getting the 23 participants on their feet. We asked them to “map” themselves within the room. From north to south and east to west, participants first went to the region where they’d grown up, then switched to the location where they live now. This dynamic movement and the concept of mapping immediately invited them to talk to one another, to ask questions of those standing around them, to notice proximity and create a moment of real-time relatedness.

We then asked them to map themselves according to what they believed about a reparative economy. People who felt relatively sure about its meaning were at one end. At the opposite end were folks who understood they knew very little. Others found themselves somewhere in between. This round of mapping likewise inspired lively conversations about meaning-making and knowing.

These exercises invited participants to be together in a reflective and relational space, warming them up for the next round of conversation, which was based in constructivist listening. Constructivist listening is the simple act of giving one’s undivided attention to another person by listening deeply to their story, without interruption, for a fixed period of time. Prior to this activity, participants were invited to take five minutes to organize their thoughts by writing out a response to one of these three questions:

1.     If you were to reimagine our economy as moving from racialized capitalism to one rooted in inclusion, equity, and justice, who and what (values, practices) would be centered? How would economic priorities be set? Who would have a voice in setting them? How would the conversation evolve? Who would hold ultimate decision-making power?

2.     What indicators or metrics would be used to monitor impact and describe economic success? How might the conversations about corporations, corporate leadership, labor, the environment be different? How would accountability be conceived?

3.     How might the priorities of an inclusive, reparative economy impact your organization and your priorities, strategies, and practices? What would you need to let go of or give up? What would remain the same? What would you need to start doing?

Participants broke into pairs all around the room. In each dyad, one person spoke for four minutes while the other person listened deeply, without interruption. This was followed by a one-minute transition period that allowed listener and speaker to share thanks and switch roles. As the timekeeper, I watched folks become deeply engrossed as listeners and fully animated as speakers. Over the course of ten minutes, the room filled with an undeniable energy of caring and curiosity.

For the final 30 minutes, each person took a moment to share how they felt in the roles of listener and speaker, respectively, and briefly offered their thoughts and suggestions around the creation of a reparative economy. They shared words and phrases such as “collective well-being,” “equal outcomes,” “return on relationship,” “net wealth = net works.” Their ideas focused on the health of the natural and human world. Definitions of prosperity centered on reciprocity, wellness, and thriving. Participants embraced norms and cultures where “having value” is rooted in concepts of mutuality and solidarity.

Above all else, those who attended our session appreciated the transformational nature of the process itself. Feeling heard and being listened to deeply was cherished and cultivated. Most importantly, the approach was acknowledged as instrumental in the process of co-imagining a new economy. This kind of curious listening, paired with caring, creative dialogue, is a necessary element as we co-create the emergent future.