I don’t like Hamming circles. I tried it twice (I think) both times where in groups of 4 with people I did not know where well, and with about 20 minutes per person. It was very stressfull.
When it was someone else’s time to get help, I felt left out and useless, since someone else who knew the person we where focused on, knew them better, and took up all the space. I did not want to to interrupt to insert my self, since that would have been selfish, and this time was not about me, so I just quietly felt bad.
When it was my time to get help, it was useless because 20 min was not enough time for them to understand me well enough to say something helpful. It wasn’t terrible, but I think it was net negative for me. Opening up about my problem is emotional and therefore tiering, and it’s generally not something I like doing under time pressure.
I don’t know how common my experience is. I’m not very typical. But in this case I don’t think I’m very unique.
Over all, I recommend against hamming circles, in situation where people don’t know each other very well. And I recommend against it even stronger in situation where some people know each other well and others don’t, because it’s even worse to have a bad experience when others talk about how great it was for them.
Generally watch out for activates that insiders like a lot, but witch may be a very different experience for people who are less connected. These are extra tricky to weed out, since it’s hard as a newcomer to speak up against it, when all the people with more status and connections talk about how great it is.
I fell into this trap once as an organiser, with an other activity. I’ve been to some events which ended with a gratitude circle, i.e. everyone stands in a circle and then everyone is invited to publicly thank other people for things. Lot’s of people seemed to like it, so I included it in one of my events. Later I learned from privet conversation that several people (probably most people) didn’t like it, for what should have been obvious reasons. The gratitude circle is nice if you’re high status or very socially secure, but not so much otherwise. I should have noticed this! I didn’t even like the gratitude circle my self. I just got sweeped away by a few people talking about how great they though it was, and no one publicly saying otherwise.
Haming circles is not as obviously bad as the gratitude circle, but I still think it’s in a similar category.
I don’t like Hamming circles. I tried it twice (I think) both times where in groups of 4 with people I did not know where well, and with about 20 minutes per person. It was very stressfull.
When it was someone else’s time to get help, I felt left out and useless, since someone else who knew the person we where focused on, knew them better, and took up all the space. I did not want to to interrupt to insert my self, since that would have been selfish, and this time was not about me, so I just quietly felt bad.
When it was my time to get help, it was useless because 20 min was not enough time for them to understand me well enough to say something helpful. It wasn’t terrible, but I think it was net negative for me. Opening up about my problem is emotional and therefore tiering, and it’s generally not something I like doing under time pressure.
I don’t know how common my experience is. I’m not very typical. But in this case I don’t think I’m very unique.
Over all, I recommend against hamming circles, in situation where people don’t know each other very well. And I recommend against it even stronger in situation where some people know each other well and others don’t, because it’s even worse to have a bad experience when others talk about how great it was for them.
Generally watch out for activates that insiders like a lot, but witch may be a very different experience for people who are less connected. These are extra tricky to weed out, since it’s hard as a newcomer to speak up against it, when all the people with more status and connections talk about how great it is.
I fell into this trap once as an organiser, with an other activity. I’ve been to some events which ended with a gratitude circle, i.e. everyone stands in a circle and then everyone is invited to publicly thank other people for things. Lot’s of people seemed to like it, so I included it in one of my events. Later I learned from privet conversation that several people (probably most people) didn’t like it, for what should have been obvious reasons. The gratitude circle is nice if you’re high status or very socially secure, but not so much otherwise. I should have noticed this! I didn’t even like the gratitude circle my self. I just got sweeped away by a few people talking about how great they though it was, and no one publicly saying otherwise.
Haming circles is not as obviously bad as the gratitude circle, but I still think it’s in a similar category.