Clearness Committee

This is a close listening and questioning exercise, drawing on the work of Parker Palmer (2007) and the traditions of Quaker practice. At its root is the belief that we can discover answers to difficult problems with appropriate support from peers, friends, and colleagues.

Purposes

• To help people find their own solutions to their own problems
• To learn to listen and question solely to support the growth of others
• To practice using open-ended, nonjudgmental, and nonleading questioning

How It Works

• Small groups are formed of about six to seven participants each.
• One person agrees to be the “holder of the problem” who describes a troubling issue at work for five to eight minutes.
• Another agrees to be the observer who notes the interactions and shares impressions when the process is completed.
• The exercise begins with group members querying the holder of the problem using honest, open, nonjudgmental, and nonleading questions. Every question should be one in which the questioner has no idea what the answer is. Questioners are told to avoid analyzing the problem or giving advice.
• Questioners are told to take time to think, become comfortable with silence, and pose questions that seem to emerge organically from the situation.
• Occasionally, the facilitator may step in to disallow questions that are not sufficiently open or nonjudgmental.
• The holder can choose to ignore those questions that are uncomfortable or unanswerable and to make comments and offer reflections throughout.
• The questioning usually continues for up to thirty minutes.
• When the exercise is over, the whole group explores these issues:
  • What made it hard to ask open, honest, natural questions?
  • How successful do questioners think they were in supporting the storyteller?
  • Did the storyteller gain new clarity on the issue?
  • What were the impressions of the observer?

Where and When It Works Well

1. In settings where people already know each other fairly well. When questioners know the holder of the problem and are aware of organizational or community history, the questions posed can often be richer than among strangers
2. When enough time is allowed to do the process justice. This shouldn't be rushed. It needs plenty of silence, and if there isn't the time to allow good questions to emerge naturally then it probably should be avoided.
3. In problem-solving community and organizational workshops. Holders of the problem usually describe something that drains their energy or prevents a team from achieving its goal, so this is well suited to meetings convened to troubleshoot problems.
4. In retreats. The relaxed nature of retreats and the greater time these involve make the Clearness Committee well suited to this setting.

In general, this process is attractive to people because it gives them a chance to work together as a community and to be helpful by focusing very intensely on one person's challenging situation. They seem to enjoy learning about those situations and are stimulated by the challenge of using questions to help the storyteller reframe his or her problem.

What Users Appreciate

1. Being heard. This exercise means holders of the problem experience an intense focus on their story and their responses. It feels wonderful to have people striving to understand your problem and help you find responses to it.
2. The chance to know colleagues better. As the exercise progresses the holder invariably discloses many aspects of her experiences that are new to the questioners. We often hear questioners say how many new things they discovered about a long-time colleague.
3. Working as a team. People like working as a focused team to help a colleague with a challenging situation.
4. Practice formulating questions. Questioners can formulate questions without being rushed or needing to fill silences.
5. Problem solving. Problem holders leave thinking more clearly about the problem.

What to Watch Out For

1. Frustration at not being able to give advice. Questioners get frustrated at not being able to give advice to solve their colleague's problem. Keep stressing the exercise is designed to help people work these things out for themselves.
2. Lack of a clear solution. Most complex problems don't have clear or obvious solutions. If they did they wouldn't be complex! You need to let people know going in that this exercise rarely yields one simple resolution.
3. Difficulty at asking questions with no clue about the answers. People find it hard to formulate questions without some hunch about the answer.
4. Don't skip the modeling. Try to model this process for participants with a colleague, taking alternate roles and never telling each other in advance what the problem is.
5. Feeling awkward about silence. Questioners need time to formulate good questions and holders need time to think about their responses and reflect on what these mean. This exercise has many silent, thoughtful pauses. If you model this process with a colleague, show you're comfortable with silence.
6. Our adaptation is a greatly abbreviated version of the Clearness Committee. Our version of this technique is adapted. Actual Clearness Committees sometimes go on for three or four hours! Also, committee members typically read a lengthy briefing paper beforehand prepared by the problem holder instead of hearing a brief problem description.

Questions That Fit This Protocol

The general question that is traditionally used in this exercise goes something like this: “What challenging problem in your personal or professional life leaves you uncertain about choices or next steps to resolve the situation?”