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The triad

Triple the group’s perspectives with an active listening triangle

Pratique

Aim

This tool enables your group to look deeper into or focus on a snapshot of a particular topic.

Below are a few examples of how it can be used:

• After a presentation, to give the participants time to gather information or identify the areas they need to look at in order to move forward
• To give a group a space in which they can help each other, encouraging peer learning
• During large seminars to facilitate the forging of relationships and a feeling of “togetherness”
• As a one-off team initiative to look at a problem from a different angle.

Instructions

Time needed: 30 to 60 minutes

The triad involves participants taking it in turns to assume three different roles, each assuming a different listening level.

These three roles are:

• Narrator: tells their story, experience or point of view in relation to the issue at hand.
• Coach: listens and supports the narrator in their reflection.
• Scribe: observes and notes down or draws out the content and format of the interaction between the narrator and coach. They take two minutes to feed back their observations at the end of the narration.

Key steps

1. Ask the participants to sit in groups of three in the clusters of chairs prepared in advance. Encourage them to mix with people they don’t know or aren’t used to working with.
2. Once they are sat down, ask a question you have already prepared in advance.
   E.g.: What is the cause of the lack of cooperation within the company? What have we already implemented to cooperate well with our clients? What can we do together to improve the procurement process? What is currently supporting our company mission? What is harming it? Tell your coach about a situation in which you experienced success as a team. What were the levers of success in your opinion?
   
   
3. Within each triad, the participants switch roles every 15 minutes.
   Each 15-minute round is broken down as follows:

• The narrator speaks ; the coach questions him/her if necessary [8 mins]
• The scribe shares what they have observed [2 mins]
• The triad discusses the scribe’s observations [5 mins]

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4. Debriefing within each triad: the three participants share what they’ve learnt from the discussions.
5. Sharing of ideas: invite the triads to come together and nominate a spokesperson to share their thoughts, what they found surprising, what they learnt and any questions that arose from the task with the whole group.

Tips and advice

• If you think your group needs a little help, you can give each triad a framework of open questions to help the coach fulfil their role (which is to support the narrator in responding to the main question).
• Don’t put a table in the middle of the triads: they will listen better and have higher quality discussions without it.