It was time for an company retreat, and ThoughtWorks had gathered 200 of it’s best and brightest from around the world into a giant conference room.
Martin got up and said, “We’re going to have a group discussion about company issues”
“How can 200 people have a discussion…?” I wondered.
The rules were simple, there would be a “Fishbowl” in the middle of the room with 6 chairs around a table. Only people sitting at this fishbowl would be allowed to talk, and there must always be a free chair so that anyone else might join the conversation.
Over the next 2 hours we had a very intense and interesting dialogue about hard issues. The CEO even sat down a couple times to argue issues with the other people in the fishbowl, but he never stayed for long.