Re:Act – A Dialogue Series for Sustainability Engagement at the ZHAW
Back in autumn 2023, ZHAW sustainable approached collaboratio helvetica, looking for a partner to design a dialogue series that would create tangible touchpoints with the recently published ZHAW Sustainability Report 2023. Building on this report, the goal was to heighten the general engagement of the broad ZHAW community and to co-create sustainability initiatives within the ZHAW. Inspired and curious, we embarked on an exciting co-design journey that culminated in four dialogue events in the Spring of 2024. In this blog post, Kaspar Paur shares insights regarding the design, impact, and learnings of this project.
Design as a balancing act
For those of you who don’t know collaboratio helvetica: Our big thing is having an impact through systems change, which makes us the best friends of root causes. In other words: Using the Iceberg model as an analogy, we love to tackle environmental and societal challenges by going beyond the visible part of an issue (visible behaviours, decisions etc), diving deeper to explore the less visible structures and relationships within systems, and, at the bottom of the iceberg we even take a peek at invisible things that influence systems (such as paradigms and belief systems).
For this specific dialogue series, however, we were faced with challenges that may seem contradictory to the slowly moving systemic methods (such as Theory U). With the time limitation of 4 dialogue evenings, different participants each time, and the clear objective of birthing initiatives, we had to come up with a new approach. We found ourselves in a balancing act between our home turf and a more results-driven approach defined by the needs behind the dialogue series.
“The partnership with collaboratio helvetica was essential in bringing our strategic vision to life. Not only did it help us spark creative initiatives, but it also laid a strong foundation for furthering sustainability efforts at ZHAW. Collaboratio helvetica’s expertise in systemic change, coupled with their adaptability, allowed us to create a dynamic space where our community could engage meaningfully with the content of the ZHAW Sustainability Report.”
Francesco Bortoluzzi
Head of Sustainability Programs at ZHAW
This is how we managed to strike the balance: The first part of each of the four 3-hour dialogue evenings focused on the systemic approach, introducing key principles from our work, including
Creating safe and brave spaces (meaning ‘You can speak your truth here’)
Holistic invitation (meaning ‘Bring all of yourself, including your emotions, into the room’)
Awareness-based process (meaning ‘Dive beneath the surface to see the bottom of the iceberg’)
Self-organised change (meaning ‘Co-shape this process with us as we’re learning together’)
Adaptive learning and flexibility in refining the dialogues based on emerging insights
Our main tool for inviting these elements into the dialogue was human (or sociometric) mappings, as well as the continued invitation to change groups and challenge the process/structure offered. Human mapping formats invite participants to physically position themselves on imaginary spectrums or circles concerning certain statements and questions, ranging from factual (“How many years have I been at the ZHAW?”) to opinion-based ones (“I think I am doing enough in the area of sustainability”) and even experience-based (“I feel that my voice is being heard in this room”). This allows the participants to get an understanding of themselves as a collective, and get curious about the different people in the room. By inviting participants to propose questions about the collective themselves, individuals can also step into co-creation and start to self-organise.
The design of the second part of the dialogue series then focused more on brainstorming and pitching ideas for initiatives and was in that sense more result-driven. The participants selected one of several topic areas addressed in the ZHAW Sustainability Report, and brainstormed ideas of what could be done in that specific area to make the ZHAW more sustainable. These discussions were held by table hosts. As a next step, each group pitched their favourite idea to the collective. After the presentations, participants had the opportunity to show their resonance with the 4-5 ideas pitched using a simple voting system.
Facilitating the Re:Act dialogue series
We expected between 20 and 40 participants per evening, and thus decided to have two facilitators hold the space (our rule of thumb is that we usually call in a second facilitator when the number of participants reaches 15-20, depending on the context). The events took place about a month apart from each other, in different locations across the ZHAW including Winterthur, Wädenswil and Zurich.
The table hosts came from one of three pools: Members of ZHAW Sustainable Development Committee, team members of ZHAW sustainable, and colleagues from collaboratio helvetica. The former two received a short crash course from collaboratio helvetica in table-hosting, to build internal capacities for a future series.
How to assess the design and facilitation
Our main measurements to assess how well we did with our design and facilitation were
the engagement levels of the participants,
the amount of new information that surfaces when safe spaces are created, and
the energy behind the ideas presented.
Overall, the design worked very well. Most of the participants were very engaged, and the safe container allowed for engaged discussions. A theme that often surfaced was the concern that the results of these series would once again disappear somewhere in a drawer, and this often led to vivid discussions between participants and ZHAW sustainable. Moreover, the quality of the ideas generated surprised us with their variety and creativity. You might wonder, what happened to the initiatives? ZHAW sustainable office is in the process of implementing a first selection of possible initiatives to take further action.
“The Re:Act dialogue series was a powerful catalyst for engagement across the ZHAW community. We were able to create a safe and interactive environment, sparking conversations that felt deeply personal and meaningful. The dialogue series was a stepping stone towards something greater — the insights and ideas born in these sessions will lead to concrete action and progress on our sustainability goals.”
Emma Sonnier
Sustainability-Engagement at ZHAW
Learnings
Embodying authenticity, integrity and honesty is scary – but so much fun!
“Here’s what we strive for in our interactions: Authenticity, integrity and honesty”, we said in one of our first meetings with ZHAW sustainable. If you have ever been on the provider side of a client-provider relationship, you might know that this is not an easy endeavour, for various reasons. In this project, our experience was very positive. Although it isn’t always pleasant to challenge or be challenged, these guiding principles created a safer space and a more personal relationship that allowed us to work well together – with lots of laughs!
Using the power of human mapping
We fell even more in love with human mapping during this dialogue series – here’s what we particularly appreciated about it:
Move: It gets people off their chairs and into movement!
Visibility: It’s incredibly effective in making a group visible to itself. Furthermore, it allows participants to see where the similarities and the differences are. The facilitation aims to bring gentle awareness to both of them and invite acceptance and even celebration around diversity.
Adaptive: We would usually start with ‘safe, fact-based’ questions, such as ‘How long have you been at ZHAW’ or ‘Are you a student, staff member or visitor?’. These questions not only provided interesting information but also allowed participants to get more familiar with the practice. As soon as we felt that the room felt safe enough for the group, we went deeper, into ‘riskier’ territory, such as opinions about sustainability, and self-reflective questions. To close the evening, we even went one step further into the experience-based questions, which often reveal the real gems. What’s great about human mapping from a facilitator’s point of view is that the questions can be adapted at any given time based on the reading of the room.
Invitation to step into co-creation: It’s very easy to hand the baton to participants, and invite them to ask them to come up with questions for the human mapping. The learning, however, is that it’s serving the process more if announced at the very beginning (vs on the spot), to grant participants a bit of warm-up time.
Versatility: For any mapping, ‘voicing’ can be invited, providing an additional layer of richness to the exercise. The way we did this was to just ask if there were any voices that wanted to be heard or to give a bit more of a prompt (“How is it for you to stand here and see everyone over there?”). Individual voices/opinions can then immediately be used for another mapping, if they feel relevant.
In our experience, human mapping shouldn’t last longer than 20-25min, as participants usually get uncomfortable standing after that time.
Involving all parties to build a sense of ownership
As explained above, we invited members of the ZHAW Sustainable Development Committee (which we also used as a sounding board) to join as table hosts. Scheduling and delivering the crash courses was a well-invested additional effort. From our perspective, if paid off in terms of creating a sense of ownership, buy-in and engagement, as well as capacity-building within the ZHAW.
Choosing the right spaces matters
This element was not within our span of control, but an important learning nevertheless: Rooms really do matter, especially in the evenings, after a long day of work. One of the dialogue evenings took place in a stuffy room without natural light, while another room was a kind of greenhouse. The difference in terms of energy levels and engagement was obvious, and it reminded us how important room selection is for this kind of event.
What’s next?
We are curious to see what emerges from this dialogue series, and want to thank Francesco Bortoluzzi, Emma Sonnier, and the whole ZHAW sustainable team for their trust, the truly inspiring journey and the laughs along the way!
About ZHAW
ZHAW is one of the leading universities of applied sciences in Switzerland. In research and development, the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences concentrates on important societal challenges, with a particular focus on energy and social integration. With locations in Winterthur, Zurich and Wädenswil, the ZHAW is firmly integrated in the local region whilst also collaborating with international partners. There are eight Schools in the University: Applied Linguistics; Applied Psychology; Architecture, Design and Civil Engineering; Engineering; School of Health Sciences; Life Sciences and Facility Management; Management and Law; and Social Work
ZHAW sustainable takes our responsibility for ensuring a sustainable society seriously and contributes to this in all core areas at the ZHAW. They conduct research in the field of sustainable development, and they educate and prepare their students to shape the present and the future in a way that will enable future generations to face social, economic and ecological challenges in a responsible and reflective manner.
About collaboratio helvetica
The challenges of our time require new forms of collaboration and a holistic way of thinking. Switzerland has a long tradition of collaboration and dialogue across language barriers and religious divides.
Collaboratio helvetica therefore believes in Switzerland's unique potential to leverage participatory approaches and collaboration to contribute to a change towards more ecological responsibility, humanity and the common good. The organisation catalyses the societal transformation of Switzerland by cultivating a cross-sectoral innovation ecosystem, building capacity for systemic change and convening stakeholders around the complex challenges addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Collaboratio helvetica empowers committed people and organisations to shift deeply ingrained attitudes and mindsets, conduct dialogues more effectively, implement new forms of collaboration and thus collectively imagine and shape the Switzerland of tomorrow.
