Knowledge Café: Going Off-topic It is OK to off-topic

In group conversations, people often worry about losing focus or control. Yet open dialogue is rarely tidy and seldom stays on a single track. Trusting people to speak freely creates space for genuine connection and unexpected insight to emerge.

Treat people as adults

In a Knowledge Café, I often say:

“The question is only a seed. It’s okay to go off-topic.”

That simple statement often invites a challenge:

“But doesn’t that risk losing focus, or make things confusing when people change tables?”

It’s a fair question, yet it rests on an assumption that conversation must be managed or directed. For me, the Café is not about control. It’s about trust. It’s about treating people as adults.

Real conversations in everyday life wander all the time. They loop and drift, touch on memories, stories, and unexpected ideas. That is what gives them life. Try to control them too tightly, and they die.

If the question is meaningful, people will naturally circle back to it. And when they wander, they often stumble into insights that could never have been planned. This is what makes a Knowledge Café work: it opens a space for exploration, for stories that reveal experience, and for the kind of personal sharing that deepens understanding.

Going off-topic isn’t a distraction. It’s a sign that people are engaging authentically, thinking aloud, and discovering what really matters to them.

And when they change tables, there’s no problem. The trivial digressions fade. The meaningful ones carry forward, shaping the next round of conversation in ways no one could have scripted.

Connection before content

There’s another reason to allow people to wander a little. When participants don’t yet know each other, they need to build a sense of connection before any serious conversation can take root.

They need to connect and get to know each other a little—to feel safe enough to speak freely, to listen openly, and to let their thoughts unfold.

This kind of connection is not a detour from the work. It is the work. Without it, the words stay shallow. With it, the conversation comes alive.

We must establish a personal connection with each other.

Connection before content.

Without relatedness, no work can occur.

Credit: Peter Block

Getting people back on-topic

Now and then, a group will drift too far. Sometimes that’s fine. But in more structured settings, say, within an organisation, it can matter.

Even then, control is not the answer. A light touch works best. At the end of each small-group conversation, remind participants of the central question. Most of the time, that’s all it takes.

The Café, after all, is a living conversation. It doesn’t need steering. It needs to be trusted.

When we stop trying to control every word, we make room for meaning to unfold. We can listen more deeply, trust each other more, and stay open to surprise. Our task is to create the conditions for real conversation and then step back enough to let it happen.