Roni’s story in his latest post reminded me of what was probably the most dramatic moment in my 15+ years of facilitating innovation. I’ve told this to people a few times (not many, because I am pretty ashamed of my role in the event), and they often don’t believe me, but I swear that this happened exactly as it is told here. 
It was a pro-bono session in a city in the US MidWest, and the objective was to find innovative ways to improve communications and understanding in the local community, which had been stressed to the point of intermittent violence. The organizers had attempted to statistically represent, within the 16 participants, all segments of the local population according to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and what not, and had done an excellent job. It was the heterogeneous-est group you could imagine, all of them good intentioned active citizens.
The first day went well, and on the morning of the second day, we opened with an exercise: the group sat on chairs in a circle, except for one person who stood in the middle. This person was asked by me to mention something he remembered from the first day, then pick another participant, ask them to stand up, and sit in their place, and so on.
