A school district needed to address the fact that some schools were very old and needed very expensive renovation, and that there were new neighbourhoods in the city that needed new schools. The budget was limited and not everything could be done.
I had trained people in participatory methods, and they tried to create a plan with some community consultation. When the senior staff had a plan in place, they decided to go to all the communities and get feedback on the plan. They asked me to design a process for them to use with all the communities, which consisted of sharing the plan and then doing a focused conversation on it. They then asked me to facilitate several of the more challenging sessions.
One high school to be closed was an arts focused school, that drew students from all over the city. It had passionate parent and community supporters, about a hundred of which showed up for the feedback session, seated in the theatre in tiered seats facing the stage. There was a lot of confusion and anger, led by one particularly vocal person.
The plan was that the director would present the plan to the large group, answer questions of clarity, and then there would be smaller breakout groups that did a focused conversation on the presentation, each facilitated by a trained staff member. But the group refused to go to the breakout groups.
So we changed the process to address the issue. I called for flipcharts, and put up all the questions of the conversation on separate flipchart pages, leaving room for answers under the questions.
First the presentation was made. Then I asked for questions of clarification, which came in attack questions such as “Why the hell are you closing our school?!!!”. Thankfully, the director stayed cool, and I rephrased the questions as questions of clarification, such as “What was the thinking behind the plan of closing our school? And “What values were you holding to make this decision?” The director answered these questions.
Then we went through the rest of the focused conversation in order, capturing the answers on the flipcharts. Reflective level questions were something like “What upsets you the most about this plan?” And What are you OK with?” At the interpretive level the questions were something like “What might be the impacts of this plan on our community? (positive or negative)” and What might be the impacts of this plan on the whole city? (positive or negative)”. At about this stage, I realized that the most vocal and angry person had not said anything for a while, so I asked her directly if she had anything to add. She said she had nothing more — it had all been said. The decisional question was something like “What recommendations do we have that will strengthen the positive impacts for this community and the city, and address the negative impacts?” A few creative suggestions came forth and were recorded.
The feedback was valuable and the group felt heard. The documentation went directly to the school administration.
In 1988, non-profit organizations were required to have a strategic plan in order to get their funding from the province for the next year. Wayne and I facilitated ToP strategic planning for each of 12 regional non-profit organizations that were connected by a provincial organization in 12 weekends between January and the end of March.
We facilitated Vision, Obstacles, and Strategies, then asked people to work on an action plan for each strategy. We started with the simple 3-page Task Force Action Planning workbook that had been developed by ICA earlier (see the overview above or https://ica-associates.ca/news/top-task-force-action-planning/ ) for each strategy. We discovered that although the process was very grounded, simple and step-by-step, people could find all kinds of ways to escape doing concrete action planning that would get results.
So we adapted the workbook each week as we encountered new ways people were escaping. First we discovered that people would name a vague “committed to” on the bottom of the first page. So we changed the words to “measurable accomplishment by ‘date’” Then we discovered that people would turn to the second page and brainstorm anything they wanted to do, whether or not the actions were related to the accomplishment they had decided on the first page. So we added a line at the top of the second page to copy the accomplishment where it was visible next to the brainstorm space. On the third page we changed “victory complete” to “measureable accomplishment”, and the “who” to “implementing team” and added “money” and “time” to the “cost” at the bottom of the 3rd page.
This story explains why the Action Planning Workbook in the Transformational Strategy course is complex – it is designed so that it makes it very difficult to avoid making grounded, achievable plans with practical actions that the whole team is committed to carrying out.
There are even more complex adaptations that evolved later on with other clients with specific needs: such as adding 3-, 2- and 1-year accomplishments and 6-month milestones; and a table that names each measurable accomplishment, indicators of success for that accomplishment, and its relationship to vision and strategies.
For more on the action planning process to use with strategic planning, ICA Associates has a training course called Transformational Strategy that includes participatory strategic planning and the more detailed action planning. https://ica-associates.ca/courses/transformational-strategy/
Currently we are more and more aware of social issues facing our society – such as addictions as in alcohol, gambling, and illegal drug use; as well as unemployment and job loss, housing, etc. Many social issues trigger emotional responses and a feeling of helplessness leading to difficulties and strong polarization in conversing individually (family), locally, and nationally around these social issues. Here is an example of a process for dialogue leading to overcoming or minimizing polarization (and a feeling of helplessness and isolation) around just one such social issue. It happens to be a real live process in dealing with gambling–but it has roots and tentacles that could be used for almost any social issue.
A number of years ago, a government body decided to do a public consultation on gambling. A team was put together to facilitate it. My role was that I had trained the facilitators in the methods, and helped design the process, but I was not there personally. It was one of those rare events where a wide spectrum of people was invited to contribute their perspectives. Participants included people who were absolutely against any gambling, and others who were absolutely for it, as well as people whose views were somewhere in the middle.
To accommodate a lot of participants, there were several large breakout groups, each of which used the same consensus workshop processes in a series of consensus workshops. These results were brought together at the end.
For one of the consensus workshops, the focus question was something like “What are all the impacts of gambling?” Participants were asked to brainstorm all impacts, both positive and negative, and put a plus or minus on their cards when they wrote them. Brainstorming in this way to this neutral focus questions allowed radically opposed ideas to be articulated. Questions of clarification when necessary were answered by the small group who wrote the cards. The clustering then was by “similar impact”, not whether it was positive or negative. Most cluster columns then included both positive and negative cards about the impact and the cluster was named neutrally as a larger impact, acknowledging that it had both positive and negative aspects.
The results on the cards including the larger impacts on the cluster names were captured verbatim in simultaneous documentation by a person on the facilitation team at the back of the room, (this was before digital cameras were common, and way before cellphone cameras). The documentation was printed and distributed to the participants at the end of the event.
The conversation in the plenary session came up with several recommendations for action.
Two amazing outcomes:
Experiential outcome:
At the very end of the session, two people, one known to be strongly against gambling, and the other known to be strongly for it, were overheard saying something like this in front of a third person, “We are shaking hands, and we will continue to talk and listen to each other. Before this session, we never would have spoken to each other.”
Rational outcome:
A couple of days later, a sponsor of the session called the lead of the facilitation team and asked them to keep all the results private until the results could be massaged for the report. The reply was that it was too late – that all the participants had already gone home with the verbatim results that had been documented as the work was going on. The sponsor was in this way held accountable to hear and reflect the outcomes of the group. Within a year all but a few of the recommendations had been approved by the sponsor and a process of implementation begun.
Keys to the success of this session:
1) 1) The Working Assumptions shared at the beginning of the process made it clear that every response would be respected and heard. (See Working Assumptions post from 2015.)
2) Making sure (through the brainstorming and clustering process) that the whole spectrum of responses was heard and held in the results, allowing people to experience that they were heard, and that everyone heard other perspectives. (For a concise description of the basic process, see https://ica-uk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Consensus-Workshop-Overview.pdf )
3) Making sure that the words that people said were documented and shared with participants at the end of the session so that the actual results became the foundation of the decisions by the sponsor afterward and that nothing was ignored.
4) Design of the process allowed safety in speaking, promoted listening and hearing to what was actually said. The process/listening allowed people to not focus on rants or positions but on the thinking and observations on what was really happening to people.
5) A focus question was open enough to allow all perspectives to be held and to be clustered to see larger patterns.
6) Clustering of the ideas was done by similar topic, allowing both positive and negative responses in the same cluster, therefore acknowledging the different perspectives while emphasizing the similar areas of concern.
7) There were tangible and documented results that demonstrated that people were heard, and that their ideas were part of the solution.
Another Story of the Use of the Organizational Journey Map: (see the original post for the map)
The chief of a police force in a small city was eager to get participation of all officers in decision-making. He had scheduled participatory meetings across the force. His “command staff”, who were committed to the traditional hierarchy of a police force, were commanding those who reported to them not to show up at the participatory meetings.
So the chief asked for facilitation of a meeting of himself and the command staff to examine the issue and bring the discussion out in the open.
So we did an Organizational Journey Map exercise with the command staff – about a dozen people, including the chief. Each officer marked each of the 8 sections on his own copy of the map where he thought the organization was and where he wanted it to be in the future. Then they talked in pairs, not to change each others’ answers, but to clarify their understanding of what was described on the map, and check to make sure they had a shared understanding. Then they all went to the wall map and anonymously added a dot in each of the 8 sectors to show where they thought the organization was. The focused conversation on this map brought some clarity on where the organization was. No surprises here: there was a lot of consensus that they were at Level 1 (Hierarchical) or 2 (Institutional) in most of the sectors, typical of most police forces.
Then they all anonymously added another colour of dot where they wanted the organization to be.
When they looked at this pattern, they were really surprised by the number of dots that showed up on Level 3, the Collaborative Organization. For example, there were more dots than they expected in the Skills sector that they wanted “managing group conflict” and in the Mission Context sector, they wanted “Quality impact of the organization on society and communities”. With the focused conversation, they noted this pattern and realized that as a group they wanted a collaborative organization more than they had realized. The irony in this was that immediately the command staff started to command those who reported to them (Level 1 behaviour) to attend the participatory meetings (Level 3 behaviour), but that was a first step in positive change for the organization.
This Map is copyrighted: Copyright Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs, 1998
Usually the best way to use the Organizational Journey Map is to work with a group in the same room that represents all the levels of the organization, or to start with the lowest level of the hierarchy. This builds a strong understanding of the consensus from the bottom up.
Individuals look at an individual copy of the map and analyze the organization; putting one mark in one of 4 levels in each of the 8 areas for what they see in the organization now, and another mark in a level in each area for how they would like it to be. Then each individual anonymously puts their marks on a shared copy of the map using different colours of dots for now and the future. The exercise ends with a focused conversation on the resulting group map, both what it is like now and another focused conversation on what people want to see. This can provide some deep insights about the organization and provide information for strategy toward a desired future.
One client, struggling with a need for change but little consensus on what change was needed, requested that I start with the executive team. So I facilitated the Organizational Journey Map process with them first. They then wanted to know what others in the organization thought. I did the same exercise with each of the next lower levels of hierarchy one at a time, without sharing the earlier results with any of them.
At the end, I shared with the whole organization what each group had done and they compared them. There was great consensus on what they wanted the organization to be like. This surprised everyone. It led to some major changes in their culture.
Bringing Together Board and Staff
A non-profit client identified some large gaps between their volunteer board and their staff. They did two iterations of the exercise separately with the Organizational Journey Map, one with the board and one with the staff. Then they made copies on transparencies and laid one over the top of the other. The conversations focused on the similarities and differences between the two different groups, and created common understanding on where they were in alignment as well as where they had different perspectives and needed to work together to bring the whole organization into alignment.
A New Board of a Professional Organization
A new board had just been elected of a global professional organization, and were having their first meeting. It was clear that different members had very different opinions about the organization. They decided to use the Organizational Journey Map to understand each other and determine a focus for the development of the organization in the next year.
They discovered that some people wanted the organization to be a fairly traditional institutional organization – most of their dots about the future they wanted were on the second “ring” or level all the way around the map. One person discovered that her yearning for the organization to be way out on the fourth level was very different from the rest of the board. In the conversation on the results, the group realized that they needed to strengthen the structure of the organization at the lower levels in several areas in order to move the organization to the next level. For example, the organization had not mastered “efficient bureaucracy” in the structural area, and therefore trying to work as “interdependent networks of individual networks and teams” was not successful because there was no structure for accountability and therefore led to cross purposes and chaos. The conversation gave the board a solid starting focus for its work together over the next year.
Most people remember the acronym SWOT for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
One time I had a client ask to do a SWOT before they renewed their strategic plan. It was a difficult time right after a provincial election that was creating chaos in their funding.
They first did a brainstorm of their Strengths and Weaknesses in their own teams.
I then had a day to facilitate workshops on their Opportunities and Threats. I decided to do it the other way around, to focus on the negative of threats first, and then challenge them to think of opportunities. The threats were an easy brainstorm, but it was hard to keep them moving. Clustering by underlying threats was a challenge, to come up with the contradictions language for naming them that was beyond blame and despair. I left the workshop results on the wall but moved them to the side.
After a break, we came back to articulate the Opportunities. I asked the question “What are opportunities at this current time to do things in a new way?” The brainstorm took a long time, but it started gaining momentum in the small groups. Then we clustered the opportunities, and the naming came up with some really big and creative opportunities.
The mood of the group shifted, and when we did the strategic plan renewal after a week or so, it was filled with creative new directions that made a huge difference in the organization’s impact.
I now try to use the acronym as SWTO, although it is more difficult to say as a word!
I was contacted by a person working for a small non-profit who knew something of ToP methods. She said they needed a strategic plan, but they only had a half-day available to do it. On the face of it, this is an impossible request.
So I started asking questions about what had brought them to this point. Her answers revealed that there were two of them, and that they were often stepping on each other’s role and plans, which created paralyzing discord and was sapping their ability to serve their clients.
They did not need a whole strategic plan. What they really needed was a way to clarify their roles, and concrete action plans for each to carry out their roles.
This meant that we could do a conversation on their roles, starting with each listing what they understood their responsibilities to be, followed by a simple Task Force Action Plan by each of them about their next steps. Since the Action Planning format embodies vision, obstacles, strategies, and actions in its process, the whole process took a half-day and satisfied their need.
This emphasizes the need to do a significant consultation with a prospective client before committing to work with them, in order to understand what their real needs are.
This series of posts will be stories from my facilitation career, highlighting lessons I learned from working with clients. I intend for these to be helpful for those I am mentoring, but in general to all facilitators. Perhaps it will mean that you don’t have to learn the same lessons I had to — that you can build on these and build on these learnings. Please feel free to add your stories to the comments!
The following post is the first story in the series….
One of the things I have heard the most in the last few months is a yearning to understand how different people can think so differently about what is going on in the world. Others have said that making meaningful connections with others is really important for mental health.
Since my vocation is about building bridges between people, and my career has involved leading conversations among all kinds of people, I thought perhaps creating a relaxed conversation with friends and acquaintances that anyone could host could lead to addressing this need.
The design of this conversation is inspired by two main resources:
I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, by Monica Guzman
The Art of Focused Conversation Second Edition: More than 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in your Organization, by R.Brian Stanfield and Jo Nelson, General Editors
There are three parts to this guide.
Suggestions for the facilitator for setting up the environment
Leading the conversation:
The first conversation: Narrowing the possible events to be discussed to one event
The second conversation: Dialogue about the chosen event
An optional conversation to evaluate the session
If you try this, please let me know what actually happened and any suggestions you have.
Setting Up the Environment:
Invite neighbours or friends to come together around your kitchen table or living room to have some facilitated open dialogue about current challenges. At first, it may be wise to have a small group of people who may have similar thinking. Let them know ahead of time that this is an invitation for those who are curious and want to explore the issues from many perspectives. You may also share the working assumptions that will create safety to speak together (See below).
Let people know that you will facilitate the conversation, and that while you are facilitating, you are detached from any opinions you might have about the content – your role is to ask questions and guide the conversation so that everyone has a chance to participate and it stays respectful.
Be ready to stop the event (respectfully) if it degenerates into digging in, arguing or ranting, or verbal attacks. Not everyone is prepared to participate in a conversation like this. If the first one goes well, try some groups with more diversity in their perspectives, but who are curious and have a readiness to be in dialogue.
You do not need to ask every question laid out below, but ask at least one or two at each level. The questions are designed to follow a pattern of clear thinking, from surface to depth, which guide the allows the understanding of the group to evolve naturally as each level builds on the level before it.
The intent of the conversation:
The Topic: What is going on right now that presents challenges for us, and that we might be able to do something about?
The Rational Aim: To have articulated, heard, and understood different perspectives on at least one current event and its impacts. A list of a few doable positive actions that will make a difference. Practical recommendations to share with leaders and decision-makers.
The Experiential Aim: Each participant will feel heard and will feel that they have connected with others who care. Each participant will have a better understanding of what is going on and of other perspectives.
(A small local conversation might connect later to many larger conversations, either on larger topics, or with other groups of people.)
Starting the Conversation
Serve tea, coffee, snacks…. Make sure people are comfortable.
Opening: Welcome everyone! (a round of short introductions if people don’t know each other)
I’ve invited you here to have a conversation about current events – to choose one that we would like to explore, and then to have a thoughtful conversation, hearing each others’ perspectives about it. Perhaps we will come up with some positive actions we can do later, or recommendations for leaders and decision-makers.
My role is to make it a safe place to ask questions and explore different perspectives on the topic we choose to explore. When I am asking questions, I do not have answers. I am leaving my opinions at the door so that I can guide respectful dialogue. I’m going to ask questions in a specific order that is designed to move our thinking from what we observe, through our internal reactions and memories, to interpretations, and finally to decision and closure.
There are two parts to this conversation: the first to pick one event to explore, and the second longer one to explore it.
These are some assumptions in guiding this conversation:
Working Assumptions:
Everyone haswisdom – life experience, personal perspectives, knowledge that they are bringing with them.
We need everyone’s wisdom for the wisest result — just as the value of a diamond lies in its many different facets, the value of a conversation lies in understanding the many different perspectives people bring.
There are no wrong (or right) answers in this conversation – we do not have to agree, just to listen to understand where someone is coming from.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts – we will all have a better understanding of what is going on after we listen to all the perspectives.
Everyone will hear others and be heard – we will all speak and listen to understand, not to argue or convince others.
All of this is about respecting different perspectives, both in listening and asking questions to clarify and understand.
2a. First Conversation: Narrowing the topic to pick one to explore:
Objective Level: What are some news events, local (or at any other level), that you have heard recently? Not commentary, but the actual event itself. Give it to us as a headline (not the whole story).
(take brief notes)
Reflective Level: Which of these news events are you most familiar with?
Which of these raise the strongest emotion for you?
Which of these are you least interested in?
Interpretive Level: Let’s pick one to explore more deeply. There are several more questions here to weigh the events up before we decide:
Which of these events seems like it has the most resonance with this group?
Which seems like it needs the most exploration to understand what’s really going on?
Which one of these do we feel we might potentially meaningfully address through our actions?”
Decisional Level: Which of these shall we pick for this conversation today? (We can talk about others at another time if we like.)
2b. Second Conversation: Focusing on the event the group has picked to explore:
Objective Level: What is some of the background data we know about this event (name it)? What is the source of that background data?
Reflective Level: What part of this is the most confusing or obscure?
What part of this is the most fascinating to you?
What part is the most frightening?
Where have you experienced something like this in the past, or observed it happening?
Interpretive Level: What might have been some of the root issues that made this event happen?
What are similar events that have happened recently?
What are some of the trends that this event might be pointing to?
What are the possible impacts of this event – either positive or negative, or both? Let’s capture this in notes. We can add plus (for positive) or minus (for negative) or both for our reactions to any impact.
Decisional Level: What can we do at the local level to influence the impact of this event and those similar to it, to mitigate potential negative impacts and strengthen potential positive impacts?
What practical recommendations do we want to make to decision-makers in our community, country, or world?
Closing: I have found it helpful to have this conversation and find out your concerns. I have learned a lot from everyone, and I hope you have, too.
Would you like to come another time to explore another topic? Who would like another cup of tea or coffee?
Optional:
Feel free to have a quick evaluation of the conversation itself with the group if appropriate:
O. What are some words or phrases that caught your attention during our conversation?
R. What was the most engaging part of the conversation?
At what part did you find yourself uneasy, or uncomfortable?
I. What is something new that you are considering now? (“I never thought about it like that!”)
What is something that confirms something you were already thinking about?
D. If we were going to have another similar conversation, what changes would you make?(Take notes on the recommended changes.)
Note: Although the content of the context talks about the Democratic party in the US, the actions could be about any political party in any country.
Context: Selected quotes taken from a post by Rosemary Cairns via The Atlantic.
“What Would a Liberal Tea Party Look Like? Democrats might have a chance to replicate the energy of the 2009 grassroots movement—if they actually want to.”
“Republicans aren’t the only ones taking flak. Democratic voters’ frustration with their party’s leaders, who are widely seen as either flat-footed or acquiescent, is growing.
To recover their mojo, Democrats need some sort of organizing principle, real or purported.
One challenge of creating a liberal version of the Tea Party is that what liberals want right now is so basic. The opposite of what Trump has done in his first month in office is good governance—careful, measured administration. But that doesn’t make a good bumper sticker, and it doesn’t inspire crowds.
Representative Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts Democrat, has warned against Democrats trying to offer voters a “Diet Coke” version of Trumpian populism. “Voters who ordered a Coca-Cola don’t want a Diet Coke,” he told the New York Times columnist Ezra Klein recently. “There are two different parties. We have to start by understanding who our voters are not and then understanding who our voters could be—and go and try to win them over.
Ultimately, Democrats will return to viability only if they’re able to learn from and absorb grassroots energy.
Democrats could certainly use an infusion of fresh ideas—and new leadership.”
My response:
Maybe a shift is needed to what the Iowa caucuses looked like when I was a child in the 1950’s — not about candidates for President, but grassroots meetings to create planks for the party platform. The ideas from the precinct caucuses were taken to a county convention, which then took the consensus to the state convention, and the consensus from the state was taken to the national convention to create the national party platform. (I remember one of these precinct caucuses happening in our family front room when I was 10. I was serving hot coffee to the participants and spilled it on me, which literally burned the meeting into my memory.)
This is what my father loved about politics – the way that ordinary people coming together and sharing their ideas created the foundation for grounded choices and decision-making all the way up to the national level.
Facilitators know how to design these from the grassroots up. And ICA did community town meetings across the US in 1976. I personally have facilitated consultations for governments that started at the local level and brought those ideas together at a higher level, looking for the common patterns that included all the perspectives.
What if we locally took action to bring our neighbours together to discuss what is important to them, and then shared these concerns with others doing the same thing? This could shape how leaders make decisions.
Jofacilitator 