Impact Hub Cafe with Oliver Winghart
21 May 2015 - Anita Chainiau

At our latest Impact Hub Cafe we got to know fellow member Olivier Winghart, who introduced us to the Art of Hosting a method he puts to use in his work, providing professional coaching, group facilitation, and individual Gestalt therapy to organizations, for the purpose of promoting personal development and well-being at work.

Olivier Winghart introduced himself as a former engineer specialized in AI, which involves mixing technology with human behavior. According to Oliver, while understanding robots can be tough, decoding human behavior is an even greater challenge.

Olivier rose to the challenge, spending over 8 years working as a therapist, seeking to explore life’s important issues. He describes a therapy session as a process not so far from the one of creating art: you never know what outcome to expect from the start of the session.

The Art of Hosting & Harvesting Conversations that Matter

It was Oliver’s interest in the psychology of groups that led him to discover the Art of Hosting. Hosting a dinner, hosting a party, hosting a television show… Many types of events require a person with the designated responsibility of setting up the space, welcoming the participants, and making sure that everything flows perfectly. Just like a journalist observing a debate, the host will not necessarily be an active contributor, but will be attentive to what is said and to the interactions between participants.
 

This specific mind-set inspired a facilitation method which Olivier introduced us to during the Impact Hub Cafe, called “Art of Hosting & Harvesting Conversations that Matter,” or simply “Art of Hosting.” This method is used by an international network of facilitators, HR professionals, and managers to facilitate all sorts of events which require a group of people to work or create together.

A group—like ours gathered for the Impact Hub Cafe—is not merely a collection of individuals, Oliver explained to us, but also a sum of interactions with its own energy, and center. The center of our group became Olivier’s bell, which symbolized silence, and a little stone symbolizing speech.

Letting a Group Do What it Does

Olivier told us that one of the tools applied in the Art of Hosting is “letting the group do what it does”— so he gave our group 10 minutes to do just that. And we did!

Our conversation, cadenced by the stone and the bell, led us to teach each other about the basics of group studies and group dynamics. We even shared some personal experiences involving hosting, and by the end of the 10 minutes we had a better understanding of the topic.

As the Host of our discussion, Olivier adopted a passive attitude. But being passive does not mean being absent. According to Oliver, attentive, quality listening is a key when hosting. Listening with your full brain and body to the other person and to the group will be what allows the host to “harvest the conversation.”

The fruit of the conversation often take the form of a drawing— documenting the key moments or themes, and individual stories that arise. The drawing helps the group understand the path it took to arrive to whatever outcomes were reached.

But making the drawing is not a goal in itself, Oliver told us. In our case, we simply had a discussion “with no set question or pressure for some result, but just with the aim of collectively thinking of what is current and meaningful for the people who choose to come.”

After those 10 minutes, Olivier asked us to reflect upon the discussion that we just had and how it happened. We noticed that no particular leadership emerged, which is, as Olivier revealed, one of the beneficial aspects of this method. Leadership is viewed as collective, and moves from chair to chair when the groups requires it.

At the conclusion of the Impact Hub Cafe, Olivier provided a reflection himself. “I sincerely thank all the participants,” he said. “We filled the room with good energy and I had the impression that some people were more experienced as hosts than I was…”

Author

Anita Chainiau