Learning Moments

Creating the right environment for your meeting.

In a conversation with a friend, I mentioned that I love to use coffee approaches in the meetings and workshops I help organize and facilitate. She looked at me with puzzled eyes: “Coffee approaches?”

What are coffee approaches?

Let me list some:

• Conversation Café
• Knowledge Café
• Pro Action Café
• Unhurried Conversation
• World Café

The word Café is present in most of them.
This is not a coincidence.
Because Cafés are social places.
“Let’s meet for coffee”?

Meeting like in a Café.

You just ordered a cup of tasty coffee in the relaxed greenhouse Café Grinder & Flinder. Some gentle murmuring from other tables reaches you. The people next to you are immersed in conversation, while others reading or seem to wait for someone. The atmosphere is animated yet relaxed.

Designed as if you are in Café.

So, having a meeting as if you are gathering in a Café is the ulterior motive of the so-called coffee approach. Yet, there is more behind it.

These approaches have one shared ambition: They want to liberate you from stiff meeting rooms and over-structured meetings that feel like a corset.

You design them.
You introduce some simple rules to make it easier for everyone to feel at ease and engage.

For example, Johnnie Moore started offering Unhurried Conversations in Cafes in Cambridge. He introduced a simple rule: As long as you hold the coffee cup in your hands it is your turn to speak.

We pick an object and whoever holds it gets to talk. And everyone else listens. Which means the speaker won’t get interrupted. (And they can hold the object and not speak… so they can hold silence until they’re ready to speak.) 

Johnnie Moore

Here is a quick overview of the mentioned coffee approaches:

Conversation Cafe

In 4 rounds of conversation, you explore a topic and deepen certain aspects.

You can find guidance and details here: Conversation Cafe

Knowledge Cafe

A Knowledge Cafe is a small table conversation. After a short and mind-provoking keynote (of 5 minutes), participants gather randomly around small coffee tables to share ideas, insights, and experiences.

You can find guidance and details here: Knowledge Cafe

Unhurried Conversation

An Unhurried Conversation is guided by a few simple rules and leaves ample freedom to explore what matters. There is usually no set topic, whatever emerges is fine.

You can find guidance and details here: Unhurried Conversation

World Cafe

A World Cafe explores a set of 3 consecutive questions in 3 conversation rounds. Tables are covered by a tablecloth; everyone is invited to doodle on it. After each discussion round, the groups are remixed. A table hosts give a quick summary of the previous discussion with the help of the notes and drawings on the tablecloth.

You can find guidance and details here: World Cafe

Pro Action Café

A Pro Action Cafe supports an action-oriented conversation to find inspiration and guidance on the development of an initiative or project.

You can find guidance and details here: Pro Action Café

Related stories

• How to quickly get unhurried.
• Conversation Cafe for thinking together aloud online.
• Structure your online discussion with a Conversation Cafe and include everyone.