FREE online courses on Effective Meeting Facilitation - Orchestrating The
Meeting - Analysis
A community leadership group received $2,000 gift for youth
programs from a wealthy individual. No one stepped forward to design and oversee
a program. In the meeting to plan next year's activities, the gift was
overlooked. Eventually the president asked what the group wanted to do with the
funds. All sorts of suggestions poured forth, always with the same conclusion:
The kids wouldn't come anyway. What the group needed to do was decide a process
issue before launching into content. They needed to evaluate options of how to
deal with the funds (not what program to implement). The choices were: (a) give
it back; (b) give it to someone who would do something with it; (c) use up the
funds on a one-time event for youth; or (d) implement the program as envisioned
when the gift was made. After discussing the pros and cons of each option, the
group agreed to implement a youth program. Until they decided that question,
they could not focus or commit to any specific plan of action on the content.
This story illustrates how a facilitator needs to separate the process issue,
prompt the group to take care of that issue, and then move on to the goal or
content issue.
The other useful analytic ability is to spot an underlying
interest, and bring it out in the open so it can be discussed and negotiated.
The president of the school board does not want to incorporate public
participation into the district's strategic planning process, claiming it is
unnecessary and a drain on time. His underlying interest, however, is that he
does not want to be chastised for low student test scores. The facilitator must
recognize the validity of the president's reluctance, yet push forward with the
requirement: "How can we involve the citizens of the district without the
meeting turning into a gripe and blame session?" Once structures were in place
to prevent wholesale attack on individual board members, he was quite willing to
involve the public.
Problems must be stated without imparting judgment or
implying a solution. The problem statement has to be worded so that participants
with differing viewpoints accept that description. For example, an arts
organization holds a theme fair to raise funds for its operation. One of the
planning committee members raises the concern that a vendor sells items that do
not conform to the theme. Note the difference in how the dilemma is stated:
"Should we let Henry sell his items next time?" Or, "How do we ensure items are
congruent with the theme?" Or, "We're here to discuss sexual harassment," vs.
"We're here to agree upon appropriate conduct in the work place."
