Focused Conversations

I'm so glad we're finally in August. After 6 months and 12 Focused Conversations, we have got our act together and ideas down on paper. We have a formidable 10-page list of requirements outlining our lifestyle needs, design preferences and dreams. This list has guided our discussions with a handful of interior designers. It has also served as 'evidence' in times of dispute over previously agreed items.

Lessons: the team process (forming, storming, norming, performing) applies to family discussions on new homes. I found it particularly effective to begin discussing the smallest spaces (i.e. bathrooms) in order to build rapport. We worked our way through respective bedrooms (where we learnt to listen more than speak, and clarify rather than advocate), and finally to the communal spaces (also the most contentious). By that time, we knew each other's mind tricks and wordplay, biases and pet peeves, so it was easier to cut to the chase and get the important stuff out on paper.

I actually thought I might take some photos of our family focus groups, but as it turned out, taking notes, toggling websites, asking questions and saying intercessory prayers all at once were already quite overwhelming. Add in the occasional "why can't the ground just swallow me up now" feeling, and that's just about how every weekend has been for the last couple of months.

Today, we finished meeting the last of 5 designers we approached. Meeting with these Creatives has taken us all over the island - in itself an educational process. For instance, we discovered amazing Xinghua Lor Mee on the outskirts of Little India (don't know the exact location, but you come out from Exit B at Farrer Park MRT, you'll see it). I digress. Each of the Creatives gave us perspectives we never had. Some we liked better than others, and we calibrated. Creative #5 was the first we called and the last we saw. Since she chose to come by our place to meet us, we got a little tea party going.