CF Workshop: Just enough input — Choosing supportive thresholds w/ Roni & Verene (2024)

Reach out to us to get access to the recordings and materials

It is important for us to be in a minimum of relationship with you if you want to engage with our workshop materials. We offer all our trainigns and materials as a gift, so that everyone can access them independent of their access to financial resources. Still, it is important to us that people engage with our content in a way that supports application and exists common habits of knowledge consumption for its own sake.

Please reach out to Verene ([email protected]) to ask for access and share with her a bit (really, no need to write a lot here!) about where/how you intend to apply this or how you imagine engaging with the materials would help to understand challenges you've encountered in the past better.

About the workshop

When we ask questions or make requests, our wording and delivery deeply influence the responses we receive. How can we use "thresholds" effectively to support movement, collaboration, and connection?

The term threshold refers to encouraging or limiting the likelihood of people responding or objecting. In Convergent Facilitation, we aim to use thresholds that invite "just enough" interaction so we can move towards a decision without leaving anyone behind.

We adjust our thresholds to help people speak up or step back depending on what we believe serves the group in each moment. Supportive thresholds help the group stay together and save time by focusing on information that moves us forward.'

Why are thresholds important?

Using thresholds effectivey will help you:

• compensate for power differences
• invite more diverse perspectives
• encourage people to speak up (or not)
• keep conversations focused
• avoid "long speeches" that don't support the group
• get things done quickly without leaving anyone behind
• resolve or prevent many other common challenges in meetings

1st session (Jun 05): Content sharing and live practice

Topics included:

• Becoming more aware of thresholds and how they affect the space
• Recognizing situations that would benefit from a different threshold
• Choosing what threshold to use based on what is needed and possible for people
• Shaping thresholds with words, energy, and context
• Adjusting your thresholds to respond to specific challenges

2nd session (Jun 12): Q&A and more practice

In the second session, we explored any questions that came up for you in your week of practice and engage in additional practice.

We are offering this workshop within our gift economy principles, which means we are offering this workshop as a contribution to the whole without expecting anything from anyone in return. Still, we need financial support to sustain our living so we share with you below the needs of providers, organizers, and the community.

About Roni & Verene

Roni Wiener

Roni advocates for personal empowerment and social change through coaching, teaching, consulting, and activism. They enjoy sharing their passion and insights in diverse settings and scales, from small groups to large organizations. Roni's life journey includes two decades of consulting focused on transforming collaboration practices, extensive work in technology projects and design, and an interdisciplinary degree in Psychology, Sociology, and Gender Studies. They offer fun and interactive workshops on topics ranging from process improvement and project planning to nonviolence, relationships, and sexual health. At other times, Roni may be found on the dance floor, at the beach, cuddling, playing games, engaging in deep conversations, writing an unpublished blog, and plotting global liberation. For more information, visit Roni’s website

Verene Nicolas

Verene is an experienced facilitator and certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication. She has delivered training and facilitated group decisions in many grassroots contexts. Her immersion in the Nonviolent Global Liberation (NGL) community where CF is practiced daily gives her a deep grounding in the power of this approach to sustain ‘radical collaboration’ across differences of all sorts.

Verene will support Roni in designing and delivering this workshop, as well as supporting participants in their learning journey. She and other members of the CF Holding Team within NGL will provide administrative and logistical support for the course.