Schuman S. - The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation (2005)(en)

Duration of Sessions

The nature of the dialogue and the complexities of the issues control the length of the session. “Some processes are just a few hours long, while others last a week or more. Many continue over a period of time, for example having week-long meetings once or twice a year for several years. Usually, for these long-lasting meetings, an effort is made to have as much continuity in participants as possible, although sometimes considerable turn-over in participation occurs” (Conflict Research Consortium, 1998b).

Tone

The tone should be informal, with questions delivered in a manner that invites contributions.

Purpose and Focus

Guide the group toward an open, respectful, and free conversation. The focus is not on reaching a solution or decision but rather to suspend judgment and gain insights into how others might feel toward the subject of the dialogue. Look at the big picture, but do not stray too far way from the purpose of the dialogue.

DIALOGUE USING THE CONVERSATION CAFÉ PROCESS

A Conversation Café is a facilitated process and dialogue with agreements that encourage a meaningful exchange of thoughts, opinions, and feelings; it is held in cafés and other public places. This open, hosted model of dialogue was created in Seattle, Washington, and has gained more exposure and use since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It offers people a forum to deal with their concerns and feelings on unlimited topics.

The Conversation Café model is related to the Collective Inquiry Model. The design elements are similar, with a call for inquiry and an opportunity to provide

engagement for participants. In addition, the stages of dialogue described by Zuniga and Nagda (2004) are implicit elements and processes in the Conversation Café model. The essence of the Conversation Café approach is the suspension of judgment, assumptions, and movement toward building shared meaning. “It is a one-and-a-half hour hosted conversation, held in a public setting like a café, where anyone is welcome to join. A simple format helps people feel at ease and gives everyone who wants it a chance to speak” (Conversation Café, 2002). The Conversation Café process is described in Exhibit 13.3.

The simple structure and minimal rules of a Conversation Café made it a logical choice to demonstrate a representative working dialogue model for this chapter. One need not master complex dialogic theory to conduct a dialogue using Conversation Café. It also provides a beginning point to gain a sense of the many benefits of facilitating a dialogue and offers a gateway to other more complex theories and models of dialogue.

This method can be used by facilitators of all experience levels and provides a dialogic structure that has a beginning, middle, and end, and it can meet the conditions and needs of a multitude of participants.

DIALOGIC CONVERSATION STARTERS

Communication is central to well-designed and implemented dialogue. At all stages of dialogue, facilitators face the challenge of exploring challenging issues with participants. The main road map for dialogue is through the question. Returning to the diversity vignette, questions should be crafted to probe the awareness of personal and business benefits of a varied workforce, acceptance of the intermingling of cultures, and whether there has been an affirmation of cultural diversity. What are the values of the stakeholders who are present or absent? Is there conflict between these values and the different categories of stakeholders? What is the value of diversity to each of the stakeholders? Following are some example conversation starters (Whitney, Cooperrider, Trosten-Bloom, and Kaplin, 2002):

•Describe a time when you were part of a diverse team that really benefits from its diversity.

•How did you learn about each other’s unique gifts and differences?

•What was special about what this group achieved?

Exhibit 13.3

Conversation Café Process

Preparation

Conversation Café “hosts” provide nametags, paper and pencil (for note taking), a centerpiece (candle, flower) and a talking object (something symbolic or just handy) that is held by the person speaking.

Welcome

The host welcomes everyone, states the theme . . . reads the agreements, sets an ending time, and calls for a moment of silence to relax, reflect and become open.

Round one

Each person speaks in turn, going around the circle once. Each person holds the talking object while they speak. During this round, everyone says their name and speaks briefly about what is on their minds regarding the theme. Anyone may pass if they don’t want to speak. Everyone is asked to express themselves fully yet succinctly, allowing time for others to speak. No feedback or response.

Round two

Now that everyone has been introduced, the group goes around the circle again. If someone wants to respond to another’s remarks, they can do so in their own turn. Each person holds the talking object. To allow more time for conversation, keep remarks brief, possibly just naming the theme or subjects you want to delve into more deeply. Again, no feedback or response.

Spirited Dialogue

Now the conversation opens up and people can speak in no particular order. This conversation will take up most of the time. If there is domination, contention, or lack of focus, the host may suggest that the group again use the talking object. Keep in mind the agreements.

Closing

A few minutes before the end of the Café, the host will ask everyone to go around the circle again, giving each a chance to say briefly what they are taking away from the conversation.

Source: Reprinted with permission from Conversation Café and the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. Excerpted from http://www.conversationcafe.org/hosts_agree.html and http://www. thataway.org/resources/understand/models/concafe.html.

•Tell me about a time you had a wonderful working relationship with someone different from yourself. What was the high point of the relationship? What did you learn from this relationship?

CONCLUSION

Dialogue is an effective and promising tool for transforming the manner in which people learn, communicate, share knowledge, and address vital issues affecting individuals, businesses, and communities. The hallmarks of dialogue are open communication and commitment to common purpose. In dialogue, well-trained facilitators interact with participants to create a safe place where everyone can trust and then think, talk, and gain insights and understanding to resolve challenges. Participants learn from one another in an environment where individuality, diversity, and creativity are not repressed. The dialogue process fosters deep listening and enables participants to connect, communicate, and bond.

Dialogue exists as an open source where facilitators are not married to using a particular approach. The existence of multiple models of dialogue allows selection from a wide catalogue of models with the possibility for unlimited customization and use across a wide range of communities. Rational solutions develop from inquiry and sharing other perspectives of participants. Dialogue is a worthy alternative to debate and other unproductive modes of adversarial interpersonal interactions. The possibilities for dialogue practice are limitless.

RESOURCES

National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (http://www.thataway.org). A network of organizations and individuals who regularly engage millions of Americans in dialogue around critical issues. A resource section (http://www. thataway.org/resources/practice/index.html) provides tools and information for practicing dialogue and deliberation. The Models and Techniques section (http://www.thataway.org/resources/understand/models/models.html) describes many dialogue and deliberation models in use throughout the world. In addition, sample ground rules for dialogue and deliberation are available (http:// www.thataway.org/resources/practice/rules.html).

Conversation About Conflict (http://www.sfcg.org/resources/training/ resources_conversation.html). Conversation About Conflict was established by Search for Common Ground and encourages participants to develop a new awareness of conflicts in our lives: how we currently respond to them, what they cost us, and alternative approaches that can be used. The Conversations are currently hosted in different cities in the United States for diverse audiences with no previous exposure to the conflict resolution field.

Let’s Talk America (http://www.letstalkamerica.org). Politics does not have to polarize. Let’s Talk America is a new nationwide nonpartisan movement to revitalize our democracy by bringing together thousands of people each week to bookstores, cafés, churches, and living rooms for open-hearted dialogue in search of higher ground. The Web site contains downloadable discussion guides and information about how to host a conversation.

Penn’s Landing Public Forum (http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/ special_packages/penns_landing/.com). A face-to-face citizen dialogue on redeveloping the waterfront at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Public Conversations Project (http://www.publicconversations.org). A nonprofit facilitation, consultation, and training group focused on divisive values-based conflicts. Many of these materials are available on-line at no cost.

Study Circles Resource Center (http://www.studycircles.org). Dedicated to finding ways for all kinds of people to engage in dialogue and problem solving on critical social and political issues.

Western Justice Center (http://www.westernjustice.org/orgs.cfm). Features an on-line database of more than fourteen hundred community groups, educational institutions, and professional associations that provide resources or experience in the skills of dialogue, cross-cultural collaboration and conflict resolution.

Lisa Kimball

Trish Silber

Nedra Weinstein

Complexity is where we are going in the 21st century.

It is the future of science.

Edward O. Wilson

In major universities around the world, in government laboratories, and in interdisciplinary think tanks, scientists have made stunning progress in characterizing the properties of complex, dynamic systems. At its core, this intellectual revolution known as complexity science is transforming our understanding of life, while providing new principles for making sense of what is most fundamental in our lives: our relationships with other people and our environment. This chapter connects and applies learning from this new science to the practice of

facilitation.

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One way of thinking about complexity science is as science’s most recent attempt to explain how order and novelty emerge in the world. Many of the concepts are extensions of ideas from systems and chaos theory. Until recently, most people thought about the natural world as a kind of machine that could be understood by taking it apart and examining the parts. This approach enabled scientists to discover a great deal about diverse phenomena. But this kind of analysis failed to explain some of the most interesting and important things about our world. The reason is that most of nature is not a well-ordered machine but rather is made up of what complexity scientists call nonlinear, complex, adaptive systems.

We make a distinction between complex and complicated systems. An airplane is complicated, with many different components. However, anyone who understands each of the individual parts can figure out, and even predict, how the whole plane will work in practice. A complex system is greater than the sum of the parts because the whole emerges dynamically from the interactions of all the components. Feedback loops exist at many levels, which influence and change how individual parts will behave over time. Such systems are constantly adapting and evolving, creating unpredictability. Examples of large complex systems are the weather, economies, and rain forests.

This new science is influencing researchers in many fields. For example, medical researchers are looking at new diagnostic methods that shift away from history’s dominant reductionist approach to prediction and control toward more holistic and participatory methods. The mathematics of complexity is being used to model patterns of fluctuations in human heartbeats to discover ways an individual can improve the chances of healing after a heart attack (Cole and others, 1999).

Economists have been exploring how the complexity-based study of social networks can be applied to economic development strategies in the Appalachian region. Using new ways of mapping relationships among and between businesses in the community, the group has begun to identify where and how to build the most productive alliances (Appalachian Center for Economic Networks, 1998).

Facilitators also work with complex systems: organizations, large groups, and change processes with networks of stakeholders. Meetings are themselves complex systems, involving the interplay of individuals, ideas, processes, and time. Complexity science offers an exciting new framework to inform facilitation practice.

We have been designing and facilitating groups for more than twenty years and have been looking at many of the facilitation practices that work through this new lens of complexity science. Using this new perspective, we have started to define

some ways to make deliberate design choices based on complexity principles. We considered how we could use this thinking to create a new set of design principles for meetings that work—that flow, promote creativity, and allow new understanding to emerge.

We noticed that many of the ideas informed by complexity do not sound particularly new. Rather, they validate some of the best practices that have emerged from experience. But we believe an awareness of complexity-based design principles can help facilitators create and choose better processes by deepening their consciousness of how and why certain practices work (and others do not). This deeper understanding will also make it easier to be more adaptable. For example, rather than using favorite designs as is (in cookbook style), we can make choices more flexibly based on an understanding of the principles that underlie these practices.

In this chapter, we describe the characteristics of complex adaptive systems, describe three design principles that facilitators can use to inform their work, and share the experience of one facilitator by describing how these principles changed her original meeting design and how the process worked for her client organization.

CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS

At the heart of complexity science is a set of essential characteristics of complex adaptive systems that we can directly apply to organizations and our work as facilitators. It is always risky to take scientific principles developed in one context and apply them to another. Some researchers (Stacey, 2001) have objected to treating organizations as complex adaptive systems and point to the many ways in which human organizations differ from the models developed by complexity theorists. However, we believe that treating organizations as if they are complex adaptive systems can yield many valuable insights.

Systems are composed of agents—molecules, termites, plants, or people, for example. In complex systems, multiple agents interact with each other, each agent unique and different from the next, such that no agent’s behavior will be the same in all conditions. Each of these agents changes and adapts over time and has an impact on the other agents because of the mutual context of the system they share.

Complex adaptive systems have the following characteristics:

1.Order is emergent and self-organizing. One characteristic of a complex system is that order emerges as it flows from the interactions among the individuals. This process is called self-organization because there is no central

control over the behavior of the individual agents. Think about how teams and organizations pull together in crises: they are often able to achieve astonishing results and later reflect on how rewarding the experience was. There is no time in a crisis to mandate or centrally control action. Relationships are the coordinating mechanism in these situations as order emerges from the interactions and relationships among individuals.

A common puzzle in organizations is why groups work together so well and achieve so much during a crisis, yet everyone reverts back to poorly coordinated, territorial behavior on an everyday basis. Complexity science explains that our everyday desire to centrally control activities and behavior in organizations actually stifles individuals’ ability to interact, take coordinated action, and achieve desired results. This explains why micromanagers tend to foster precisely what they do not intend—either stagnation or chaos, actually preventing the organization from being able to perform.

2.A small set of simple rules generates purposeful, complex, and dynamic behavior.

Flocking birds are exquisite examples of another essential characteristic of complex adaptive systems because they exhibit a kind of self-organization where a small set of rules generates complex behavior. A computer simulation developed by Craig Reynolds in 1987 demonstrates this concept (Zimmerman, Plsek, and Lindberg, 1998). In this simulation, autonomous agents (called boids) are placed in an on-screen environment full of obstacles and are governed by three rules: (1) maintain a minimum distance from all other boids and objects, (2) match the speed of neighboring boids, and (3) move toward the center of the mass of boids in your vicinity. Although the boids are not instructed to flock, the simulation generates complex, dynamic flocking behavior. In the same way, many organizations today (among them, Yahoo! Dell, Miramax, and Lego) successfully navigate uncertain and chaotic business environments by using a small set of rules and strategic processes to guide themselves (Eisenhardt and Sull, 2001). There is no time to wait for guidance from top management or lengthy strategic plans in such a rapidly changing business environment. These simple rules and strategic processes help individuals (and business units) quickly decide what kinds of opportunities to pursue, when a project should be dropped, and how to rank priorities.

3.The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, with its own distinct identity. As each unique individual takes independent action, changes, and interacts with