TIL swapping the order of our discussion topics fixed our debate problem

Honestly, my book club in Austin was stuck in the same rut for 6 months. We always started with the big themes like symbolism or character flaws, and people just argued in circles. Last week I tried flipping it - we kicked off with the mundane stuff like pacing or chapter length first. It totally changed the energy and got everyone talking before we hit the heavy topics. Has anyone else tried rearranging their discussion order to avoid those repetitive debates?

3 comments

3 Comments

dylanh811mo ago

Nah, big themes first forces people to actually engage.

taragrant1mo ago

Our cat rescue group had the same problem. People would show up ready to argue about adoption policies and nobody wanted to hear it. I started making everyone do a quick "best cat fail of the week" before we tackled the serious stuff. @dylanh81, I get what you're saying about forcing engagement, but sometimes people need a warm up round before they can handle the heavy stuff. Like getting your brain moving before you try to deadlift, you know?

wade4384d ago

Wait, has nobody else run into this with their group too? I feel like @dylanh81 might be coming from a place where people actually want to argue, but in my experience most folks just need a minute to settle in before they can handle the deep stuff. My book club was exactly the same way - we'd try to jump into symbolism and theme right off the bat and people would either check out or get defensive. Switching to the smaller details first gave everyone a chance to just talk and find their voice before we touched the heavy stuff. It's like how you wouldn't start a workout doing max reps on bench press, you gotta warm up first. For us, doing the easier observations upfront actually made the deep discussions better because nobody felt put on the spot.