World Café Success Story

In the past few years, an idea-sharing methodology known as the World Café has become increasingly popular. The beliefs that people want to talk together about things that matter to them, and that access to greater wisdom is found only in the collective, are the foundation of the World Café concept. The World Café format encourages idea sharing, listening, movement, inclusion, and energy. The concept involves small groups of people moving from table to table, doodling and drawing, sharing and connecting ideas, and creating themes.

The process was co-originated 11 years ago by Juanita Brown, Ph.D., with her partner, David Isaacs. Brown is an advisor to senior leaders, creating and hosting innovative forums for strategic dialogue on critical organizational and societal issues. Isaacs is the president of Clearing Communications, an organizational and communications strategy company working with senior executives in the U.S. and abroad. Together they realized the process in Brown’s living room with 20 people separated around TV tables covered with easel sheets.

Last July, American Society for Quality (ASQ) member and Customer-Supplier Division past-chair Steven Hacker decided to adapt the World Café format for an event that he planned with COLA – the World Lab Forum. Hacker says that using the World Café concept proved to be the right thing to do. “People are hungry for conversation and the elements of the café were very powerful. The conversational format and graphic artist’s documentation are brand new to the medical field and were a huge success.” 

The forum, titled “Laboratory Medicine’s Response to a World At Risk,” was held last July 30 – Aug. 1 in Baltimore, Maryland.  It consisted of about 40 thought leaders who were faced with the goal of creating a vision for laboratory medicine in the future, and subsequently, what steps should be taken to move toward that vision.

“The crayons, markers, and conversation gave us just what we hoped for – the interaction enabled participants to take ownership of foundation items to start a world lab movement,” said Hacker, ”Instead of focusing on problem solving, we transcended the problems and made conceiving a vision the purpose of the conversations.”

Hacker became familiar with the World Café concept from ASQ Executive Director and Chief Strategic Officer Paul Borawski. Hacker first adapted the methodology for ASQ’s Customer-Supplier Division’s annual symposium last year and it will be used again this year.

“It’s exciting to see the tools of the World Café being used so powerfully and aimed at a world issue,” said Borawski regarding the success of the World Lab Forum. The forum is a great example of “how quality is shaping the hopes of the world and being applied to large scale human concerns,” said Borawski.

ASQ’s Board of Directors, many member leaders, and staff have been trained in this methodology by Arian Ward, a Living Strategy consultant to ASQ. Ward has hosted almost 350 cafes in the last 11 years and introduced the concept to ASQ in 2002. “Cafes are not about politics, they’re about being real, collective thinking, and dialogue – all driven by questions,” said Ward, “A café can work anywhere, for anyone. Cafes give people the right environment and process to talk from the heart. Yes, there may be some conflict, but it’s done respectfully. The engagement and energy level makes you feel differently; it’s something you have to experience.”

A brief version of ASQ’s World Café story is highlighted by Ward, Borawski and former ASQ president Ken Case in the book The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter, by Juanita Brown with David Isaacs and the World Café Community. For more information about the book and the World Café methodology, visit www.theworldcafe.com.