Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal
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Contents of Issue 4:
Editorial
Theory and Research
- Contributions of Caucusing and Pre-Caucusing to Mediation Gregorio Billikopf-Encina
Drawing on his work as a researcher and practicing mediator in interpersonal organizational conflict, the author argues that pre-caucusing a separate meeting between the mediator and each of the stakeholders before they are ever brought together into a joint session can not only overcome many of the negatives often associated with caucusing, but has the potential of becoming a pillar of conflict management. This is especially so when pre-caucusing is integrated into a transformative mediation framework.
Pre-caucusing affords stakeholders the opportunity to vent and be heard at a critical time in the mediation process, when it can reduce defensiveness and increase creativity. Once in the joint session, stakeholders communicate with each other with less mediator interference.
Key Words: caucusing, pre-caucusing, mediation, conflict resolution, alternative dispute resolution, conflict management skills, conflict management mechanics
- Coherence in Face-to-Face Electronic Meetings: A Hidden Factor in Facilitation Success S. Pak Yoong and R. Brent Gallupe
Planning and designing are considered essential to the successful facilitation of face-to-face electronic meetings. However, relatively little is known about how to perform these pre-meeting activities. To illustrate how the planning and design of face-to-face electronic meetings might be improved, this paper uses the concept of coherence in meeting processes. A grounded action research study illustrates how new electronic meeting facilitators use two types of coherence, internal and external, in planning and designing their initial electronic meetings. Implications for meeting researchers and practitioners are considered.
Keywords electronic meetings, meeting facilitation, Group Support Systems, grounded action research, IS research methodologies.
Consultants and facilitators increasingly use formal approaches to dialogue as a means to build the capacity of groups to engage at deeper levels of collective understanding. For example, the contributors to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook propose the application of dialogue techniques to the practice fields of "mental models" and "team learning" as ways to build the skills of inquiry and reflection into the day-to-day activities of groups of all kinds.
Combining the work of William Isaacs and the Dialogue Project at MIT with a model from the Quaker tradition, this paper suggests a tool for skillful discussion that can allow a group to deal with conflict by stepping back into a shared silence that generates critical questions, and describes a case example of its use.
Keywords conflict management, facilitation, dialogue, clearness committee, learning organization
Learning organizations are able to grow and successfully adapt to changing environments, and group facilitators have a key role as change agents in the process. This paper draws heavily from the work of Peter M. Senge (1990a, 1990b, 1994, 1999), who describes learning organizations as consisting of four core disciplines: personal mastery, mental models, team learning and shared vision. In addition, Senge introduced a fifth concept of systems thinking. The work of several other management scientists is discussed in relation to the learning organization attributes identified by Senge, and the role of facilitators in creating organizational change is highlighted.
Keywords learning organizations, organizational change, change strategies, organizational development, personal mastery, mental models, team building, teamwork, team learning, systems thinking, system dynamics, group dynamics, group model building, decision conferences.
Application and Practice
- Participatory Rural Appraisal: A Brief Introduction Lance Robinson
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is an approach to facilitating community development whose family of techniques such as Venn diagrams, matrix ranking, and matrix scoring rely heavily on visualization and diagramming. However, what distinguishes PRA more than any of its techniques is its emphasis on participation.
PRA practitioners generally believe that only when participants are in full control of needs assessment, goal-setting, planning, policy-making, implementation, and evaluation can a process be considered fully participatory. PRA, which emerged first in the global South, is increasingly being used in developed countries, and it is in this commitment to participation that PRA has the most to offer facilitators practicing in the North. Facilitators using any approach are encouraged to ask themselves reflective questions such as, Are my actions and methods as a facilitator contributing to the ability of the participants to take control?
Key words
rural development, appraisal, community meetings, matrix, community, Participatory Rural Appraisal, Rapid Rural Appraisal, Participatory Learning and Action
Classics for Group Facilitators
- What Do We Mean By Facilitation Brian Auvine, Betsy Densmore, Mary Extrom, Scott Poole, and Michael Shanklin
As the International Association of Facilitators engages in developing a statement of values and code of ethics for group facilitators, it is enlightening to review this introductory chapter to A Manual for Group Facilitators, first published nearly 25 years ago. In it the authors define the term facilitation and explicitly incorporate "The Values We Stress" and a "Code of Responsibilities: Ethics for Facilitators."
Essays
- Essays on Consensus- Freeman Marvin and John Butcher
Book Reviews by Julianna Gustafson
As a facilitator, you may write for varying purposes and audiences: a consulting proposal to engage a new client, or perhaps a journal article or book to contribute to ongoing scholarly or professional discourse. Regardless of your level of experience, writing can be a laborious—even dreaded—task. How many of us can relate to that feeling of panic when confronted with a blank computer screen and a looming deadline? (How do I capture my reader’s attention? Is this sentence hard to read? My thoughts are brilliant, so why is my writing so banal? What are my chances of getting this piece published?) To surmount this impasse, you need a little elbow grease, a lot of what Anne Lamott calls a writer’s “revolutionary patience,” and maybe some advice from the experts. No book can solve all your problems for you, but there are a few good ones that can help you face the task of writing with confidence and vigor.
My favorites comprise a trio of complementary books: William Zinsser’s On Writing Well (the process of writing nonfiction), Elizabeth Rankin’s The Work of Writing (specifically for professional and academic contexts), and Joseph William’s Style (a guide about the craft of writing, regardless of context). While all three are valuable resources in a writer’s library, the kind of book you need depends upon the kinds of problems or pitfalls you tend to encounter when you write.
Editorial
Believe in Doubt- Sandor P. Schuman
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. — Andre Gide
We live in a contentious world. Diversity of beliefs and values is the norm and we can expect to encounter conflict more frequently than consensus. The presence of conflict often stimulates each party or interest group to impress its version of reality on the others in an effort to achieve a change of mind and win agreement. However, even when agreement is reached there is no means for assuring that it is right.
One's understanding of the world is not based on careful reading and unequivocal interpretation of technical manuals but rather on socially derived and communicated knowledge and values. In the words of Peter Checkland, "Social reality is the ever-changing outcome of the social process in which human beings, the product of their genetic inheritance and previous experiences, continually negotiate and re-negotiate with others their perceptions and interpretations of the world outside themselves" (Checkland 1981, 283- 284). Giovanni Battista Vico said it more succinctly, "To know the world, one must construct it." (Shrage 1990, xvii).
Too often in the search for truth, too many are too sure too early. Most of us are too comfortable with our views, our status quo, and are reluctant to change. Our truth, our internally consistent system, supports and sustains us. Few understand, as did Anais Nin, that "We don't see the world as it is; we see it as we are." This insight leads us to a key paradox: because the truth in which we believe is unique to who we are, we should not trust its generality.
If we should not believe in truth, then in what should we believe? We could say, "believe in doubt." Indeed, in this world of multiple, conflicting realities we need far more individuals who willingly exercise doubt, cultivating more openness, more questioning, more learning; people who listen carefully to each and every perspective—to understand fully but to believe doubtfully—even to doubt that they really understood at all! Still, it is critical to strike a balance between believing and doubting: too much belief and there is no learning; too much doubt and there is no action. So if we "believe in doubt," on what shall we base our action? Perhaps we could "believe in groups"! Let's give this a try by making explicit two key premises and examining their implications:
1. Each individual in a group has the potential to make a valuable contribution.
2. Some group members might have more valuable contributions to make than others—more expertise, greater insight, better judgment—on at least a few of the tasks at hand.
The problem is that we rarely know which individuals are more expert at which tasks. There is no objective way to distinguish between one good contribution and another to determine which is better, or to know how to combine individual contributions to produce results that are better than any of the individual contributions taken alone.
Although we often rely on one person to integrate the group's thinking, this may result in that person's views dominating all others— and that one person might not have it right. Alternatively, we can allow the group to decide how best to make use of the contributions of each of its members. This requires that we help group members learn from one another, so they can correct one another's errors, enabling—at least theoretically—the group to perform better than even its most capable member. (Although this potential exists, such performance is rarely documented. For example, see Reagan-Cirincione 1994.)
To reach conclusion requires consensus, because this requires that everyone must come to terms with each and every person's unique contributions. We have no better potential for attaining the best possible outcome. A critical proviso of believing in groups is that groups be representative of all pertinent perspectives, interests, and expertise. Since it is so much easier to reach consensus with a homogeneous group, members are often selected for the similarity of their views.
To believe in the efficacy of groups to solve our most complex and conflictual problems, we must select group members for their diversity, for their unique constructions of reality. While we might believe in groups, we nonetheless should doubt whether the group is fully representative of all relevant interests, beliefs, and values. Consistent with this concern, we must keep in mind Norman Maier's admonition, "Reaching consensus in a group often is confused with finding the right answer." (Maier 1967, 241). Let's strive to bring together people representing all relevant points of view. Let's fully put to use group interaction methods that encourage tolerance and respect, listening and questioning, independent thought and group conversation. Believe in doubt; believe in groups.
References
Checkland, Peter (1981). Systems Thinking and Systems Practice. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons. Maier, Norman R. F. (1967). Assets and liabilities in group problem solving: The need for an integrative function. Psychological Review, 74, 4, 239-249.
Reagan-Cirincione, Patricia (1994). Improving the accuracy of group judgment: A process intervention combining group facilitation, social judgment analysis, and information technology. Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 58, 246-270. Schrage, Michael (1990). Shared Minds: The New Technologies of Collaboration. New York: Random House.
Introduction
Learning organizations, five disciplines, dialogue, Quaker tradition, consensus, Participatory Rural Appraisal, coherence, electronic meetings, caucusing, mediation, values and ethics: these are the things that this issue is made of! The discussions of IAF's Ethics and Values Think Tank have precipitated a number of controversial issues. Among them is a fundamental question about whether consensus is a fundamental part of group facilitation, or is it just one of the options for making decisions. In this issue's Essays on Consensus, Freeman Marvin, Consensus is Primary to Group Facilitation, and John Butcher, Consensus is Situation Dependent, explore this issue in depth.
Authors Kai R. T. Larsen, Claire McInerney, Corinne Nyquist, Donna Silsbee, Aldo Zagonel make the assertion that “…not only do facilitators possess exactly the values and intrinsic skills required to help facilitate the transformation needed for organizations to become learning organizations, but that most successful transformations will indeed be conducted by external facilitators.” In Learning Organizations: A Primer for Group Facilitators the authors review the “five disciplines” at the core of learning organizations and provide insights particularly useful for group facilitators.
In conjunction with the growing interest in “learning organizations” so also has there been increased interest in “dialogue” as evidenced by a number of recent books on the topic. Finding Clarity in the Midst of Conflict: Facilitating Dialogue and Skillful Discussion Using a Model from the Quaker Tradition, by Malcolm Burson, integrates contemporary thinking about dialogue in organizations with traditional practices in the Quaker tradition and provides an illustrative example. In Participatory Rural Appraisal: A Brief Introduction, Lance Robinson explains the origins and application of this facilitated approach to community development. The author emphasizes the participatory nature of PRA, the importance of facilitators' attitudes, biases, and behaviors as well as the tools that are typically used.
Coherence in Face-to-Face Electronic Meetings: A Hidden Factor in Facilitation Success by Pak Yoong and Brent Gallupe focuses on the relationship between the activities within a meeting as well as between the meeting and other activities. The authors report on a study involving conventional meeting facilitators who were trained to become electronic meeting facilitators. “What is the difference between mediation and facilitation?” is a question that arises repeatedly. Gregorio Billikopf-Encina takes us for a closer look into the world of mediation in Contributions of Caucusing and Pre-Caucusing to Mediation and enables us to ask the question, “does caucusing have a role in the practice of group facilitation?”
First published nearly 25 years ago in A Manual for Group Facilitators, What We Mean by Facilitation by Brian Auvine, Betsy Densmore, Mary Extrom, Scott Poole & Michael Shanklin provides a fundamental statement about the nature, values and purpose of group facilitation. It suggests a code of ethics for group facilitators, highly pertinent as the International Association of Facilitators considers formal adoption of its own statement of values and code of ethics. This book chapter is reprinted here in our Classics for Group Facilitation section.
Each issue of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal represents two major activities. First, developing the content: working with authors and reviewers, providing feedback on manuscripts, accepting completed papers. Second, changing that content into a presentable form and distributing it to our subscribers within our financial constraints. The first is the responsibility of the Editorial Board, while the second is that of the Publisher. With this issue we extend our welcome and thanks to Bill Staples, who has valiantly taken on the role of Publisher. He brings years of experience in publishing, including his work as publisher of Edges magazine. In addition we welcome Ronnie Seagren, Copy Editor. We look forward to working with all of you.
— Sandor Schuman, Editor
