Episode 8 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we get into using hand signals ("agreed gestures or shapes that people make with their hands, to communicate in a non-verbal way") as a facilitation tool: what hand signals are useful in facilitation, when they're useful, and their limitations.
'Know why you want to use them, be really clear on what they're for, and keep it kind of simple.' - Ali
Show notes, links
The perenially-useful Seeds for Change have a PDF that covers a lot of the hand signals you may see in meetings.

See our "What is facilitation?" podcast episode page for more general facilitation resources.

Transcript
Ali: This is Resist + Renew.

Kat: A UK-based podcast about social movements.

Sami: What we're fighting for, why, and how it all happens.

Ali: The hosts of the show are:

Kat: Me Kat,

Sami: Me, Sami,

Ali: and me, Ali,

Sami: I'm recording this now baby

Ali: Shit it's a podcast.

*Laughter*

Ali: Hello again, this is the Resist+Renew podcast. And this is the time where we talk about facilitation tools where we geek out and examine some of the things that groups might use to help things go a bit more smoothly. And this week, we're talking about hand signals. Many people have probably come across these in meetings, it's just a way that you can non verbally communicate to each other. And it can be really useful for the facilitator to get a sense of what's going on in the room, it can be used to get who take turns on who's gonna speak and communicate other things like that. So Sami, do you want to kick us off with a story?

Sami: Yeah, sure. So quick example of a scenario where hand signals have been really useful to me in the past is a situation on a protest. And that was at a Arms Company base in the middle of nowhere, lots of different people coming together for like a coordinated day of action to shut down this space and stop vehicles getting in, stop vehicles getting out. And a lot of people who hadn't interacted before, all doing their own actions separately, but trying to make sure they all threaded together into a good plan and blockade. So what that meant was a lot of quite quick fire coordination with a lot of people that you've literally never met before in your life, you have no idea what the plans are, you don't really know what you're going to be trying to coordinate together. But you may be trying to talk about how you can collaboratively and effectively block a road and things like that. And so having like a shared idea of hand signals. And what I guess that kind of leads to is a shared idea of how like a conversation will be structured, which goes into the link, I guess, between hand signals and consensus, which we can maybe talk about, is really enabled, and made a lot more possible, making really quick decisions with strangers in a way where I think if you were just limited to talking, especially in an environment where there's a lot of police around, and you're trying to make a plan, which is really contingent on the police not knowing what you're doing. And having being able to like form up a little circle and do little signals and whatever to each other to indicate agreement, and things like that meant everything went a lot more smoothly than it could have done. So that's a vote of love for hand signals. So worth noting, in the prep chat for this not entirely love for hand signals. So I guess, let's move on to maybe what we see some of the limitations being.

Kat: Yes, I guess I don't use hand signals very much. And I think one of the reasons is because I had a fairly negative experience when I first came across them...