The Discovery Process - A Disciplined Stranger

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The Discovery Process

A key component to the Discovery Process is coming into a community as a disciplined stranger. Here are our techniques:

Describing: Describing is the ability to communicate what we see around us in a way that informs others of our observations without our value judgments being used to interpret. Our observations should be able to be put into words for reflection to take place.
Reflecting: Reflecting is the ability to repeat back to someone what we have observed and refine the description from their response without giving advice or answers based on our experience somewhere else.
Being a Stranger: Being a stranger is the ability to observe and interact in a community with a minimum of preconceived ideas and conclusions about that community. This is the most important skill in promoting community-based stewardship and the most difficult to accomplish.
Listening: People are willing to talk to us about their communities. The ability to actively listen to others will reveal an abundance of information. As active listeners we listen with our entire nervous systems not forming any response until the listening is finished.
Focusing: From the overall description, it is important to focus on the issues that relate to our client's policy or project.
Documenting: The description must be documented in a useable way.