Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind

by Nancy Kline

Thinking Environment structure for presentations. It goes something like this: 1 The chair welcomes the presenting team and mentions its successes so far. 2 The presenters make the entire presentation before there is any interruption or attack. (If you are confused about something, so confused you truly cannot listen to the next sentence, ask for clarification, but only if you are sure the question is not going to be answered in the next sentence or two.) 3 After the presentation is complete, the chair asks first for comments on what was useful from the presentation, demonstrating this by being first to speak. 4 Then the chair encourages questions and discussion, but always without interruption. 5 At the end of the meeting, regardless of how much legitimate criticism there has been of the presentation, the chair goes around the group to get honest answers to this question: What do you think has been good in this presentation, and what in particular do you respect in the presenting team?