November Card Of The Month: Fishbowl 🐠🥣

🃏Card Of The Month:

*Each month, we highlight a card in every newsletter so you can get to know the deck one at a time. This month, we’re spotlighting one of our favorite cards when it comes to debriefs and large group discussions: Fishbowl.

Here’s how to do it

Fishbowls are a unique way to have the full group participate while only a few people are required to speak out loud. Essentially, a small group discussion is going to be witnessed by the full group.

First, ask for volunteers to go into the Fishbowl. Once you get it set up, encourage the group to have a free-flowing discussion. You can facilitate this discussion as much or as little as you’d like!

The literal “how” to do it

To do this in-person, set up a circle of chairs where everyone can easily see/hear who is speaking. Ideally this can be done as a small circle inside of a larger circle of chairs, but having it at the front of the room also works if you’re a bit tight on space.

For virtual fishbowls, ask everyone who is not participating to turn their cameras off. If you’re on Zoom, we like to take it the extra step and have everyone find the three dots menu by hovering over a participant with their camera still on and selecting “hide non-video participants*”. This way, only the folks in the fishbowl are seen, making it easier for everyone to concentrate on the small group. We often encourage this small group to unmute themselves to ease the flow of conversation!

*be sure to unselect “hide non-video participants” when the Fishbowl’s over so you don’t miss those that choose to remain off-camera!

When it’s useful

Fishbowl is a full group activity but only requires out-loud participation from volunteers, which makes it a great way to avoid the group from burning out around the topic of discussion. Due to their intimacy, it’s much easier for those within the circle to have open dialogue and respond directly to each other, rather than the fragmented style of discussion that so often happens in a full group.

If you have three or more small-group discussions planned on your agenda, try swapping one of them out for a Fishbowl!

Fishbowls offer a unique container for conversations, which enables them to be particularly helpful if you’re holding a discussion on a tricky topic. It’s a small group that you are solely focused on facilitating, so you give up far less control than sending everyone off on their own.

We’ve found them to be a great way to model how we’d like small group discussions or breakout rooms to go.

Fishbowls can also be used to sneakily get around over-active participants. Simply don’t include them in the small group! (”I see your hand and I appreciate that, we’re going to try and get some different voices a chance during this discussion.”)

This is also a great process to use if you have folks in the room with outsized experience or knowledge that you would like the rest of the group to witness in action. If there are participants who have been deeply embedded in a movement for 5+ years, allowing them to have a top-level discussion with each other, using the language of their movement with practiced ease, it is a fantastic opportunity for the newer folks in the room to witness how the verbiage is used and see experts, well, experting.

Variations to try

Option One: Clarification Station

You can easily use a fishbowl after any of Facilitator Card’s green ideation processes. Say we’ve just finished creating a list using Opposite Thinking for the prompt: what makes a bad facilitator? Create a fishbowl and have the group discuss what we can learn from the list we just made.

Option Two: Solo —> Small Group —> Large Group

Role-model how you’d like the conversations to go in the small group (we’ve found this works especially well for longer conversations). In a recent session, we were having a discussion about ways to prevent one participant from dominating the session.

1. We had the full group do a Minute Paper on the 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 table groups Go-Around Share what they had come up with, then called for Fishbowl volunteers
3. In the Fishbowl, they discussed both their and their group’s insights with each other, allowing for the full group to have access to more ideas while the discussion itself was far more seamless.

Option Three: Expert Testimony

An office of 25 people are participating in a workshop. Only five of them have been with the organization for 5+ 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 5 years, 2 years, 1 year, and the most recent hire have a discussion. Centering non-experts can also be a great way to remind those who are well-versed in subjects of the beginner’s mindset.

Now it’s your turn!

Fishbowl’s are what we call an accordion activity, easy to contract down and pack into an agenda (we only have five minutes for this Fishbowl!) or expand to fill as much space as needed (multiple rounds of prompts or participants—or both!). They slot into any agenda with ease, especially during those conversation-heavy sessions.

Want to break up the monotony of a group discussion? Try a fishbowl! Want to vary how small-group conversations are taking place? It’s great for that too!

Let us know when & how you use a Fishbowl in your workshops, meetings, or sessions this month!

Check out our 60-second tutorial to learn all about Fishbowl in just one minute!