4 Pages - Paper Answers

First and foremost, remember to go very carefully through all of the required materials before starting this assignment. There are two short articles, plus two in-depth book chapters to go through. There are also some optional readings in the background materials that you can use for your paper. It is important to make sure you understand the ins and outs of Open Space Technology and Future Search before starting on this assignment, so make sure to go through the readings carefully before you start on this paper .

For this assignment, you will be going through four scenarios. For each scenario, cite at least two of the readings from the background readings to support your answer. You need to cite at least four of the readings total for your paper—these can include both required and optional readings listed in the background materials. Your paper should be
4 pages in length
:

1. Suppose you win the lottery. Not sure what to do with all of your money, on an impulse you decide to buy a local college as you want to make a positive impact in your community. However, you soon find yourself a bit over your head as all day you have employees or students coming to your office with all kinds of advice, suggestions for changes that should be made, complaints, etc. Never having run a college before, you are a bit confused about how to deal with all of this input and you don’t really have a good idea about what to focus on. The college has about 300 employees and 800 students and want to find a way to get some more organized input and creative ideas for improving the college. Should you use Open Space Technology, Future Search, or neither? Explain your reasoning and justify your answer using at least two of the readings from the background materials.

2. A video game company starts out with five undergraduate students living in a dorm, but rapidly grows within three years to around 50 employees and $10 million a year in annual revenues. While the company is still expected rapid growth, there is still sharp tension between the very young video game designers and the older and more experienced executives who run the finance and marketing departments. In particular, the younger employees strive to develop new video games that are unique and much different than any other games available. However, the more experienced executives wish to take a more conservative route and come out with games that are similar to popular games produced by their competitors. The five founding partners are not sure which of these two directions to take and wish to receive input from all of their employees through some type of formal process. Should the CEO use Open Space Technology, Future Search, or neither? Explain your reasoning and justify your answer using at least two of the readings from the background materials.

3. An insurance company has most of its employees in three different departments – sales, accounting, and information technology. The CEO is always receiving input from the sales department, as most of the salesforce is very outgoing and they don’t hesitate to give their opinions or make requests. On the other hand, employees in accounting and information technology tend to be quiet and shy and rarely speak up. The CEO notices that there is considerably higher turnover in the accounting and information technology departments, and thus becomes concerned that perhaps employees in these departments are leaving because they are dissatisfied with decisions the CEO has made or because they feel the salesforce is overly favored. There are about 50 employees in each department. The CEO wishes to find a process by which a wider range of employee input can be obtained. Should the CEO use Open Space Technology, Future Search, or neither? Explain your reasoning and justify your answer using at least two of the readings from the background materials.

4. A CEO initiates an Open Space Technology conference. At the start of the conference, the CEO provides a list of topics he wants covered and also gives his opinion on what kind of outcomes he wants from the conference. He also makes attendance at the conference mandatory. When the conference starts, participants all volunteer to give sessions on the topics proposed by the CEO. A few participants propose to give sessions on other topics not mentioned by the CEO, but very few employees come to these sessions and instead go to the sessions covering topics suggested by the CEO. At the end of the conference, the CEO is presented with a carefully worded summary of the conference and given conclusions that the CEO wanted to hear. However, after the conference ends and employees go back to work they are very slow at implementing the recommendations from the conference. What do you think went wrong? Which major principles or concepts of Open Space Technology do you think the CEO violated? Explain your reasoning, and cite Leith (1996) and at least one other source on Open Space Technology to support your answer.

References:

Nixon, B. (1998). Creating the futures we desire – getting the whole system into the room: Part I. Industrial and Commercial Training, 30(1), 4-11. [ProQuest]

Leith, M. (1996). Organizational change and large group interventions. Career Development International, 1(4), 19-23. [ProQuest]

Norum, K. E. (2005). Chapter 15: Future Search conversation. In Dialogue as a Means of Collective Communication (pp. 323-333). Springer Science & Business Media B.V. / Books.

Rogers, J. (2010). Large group interventions. Facilitating Groups. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education. Pp. 98-104 [EBSCO eBook Collection. Note: this is a section at the end of Chapter 3 of this book]

Creating the futures we desire – getting the
whole system into the room: part I

Nixon, Bruce . Industrial and Commercial Training ; Guilsborough Vol. 30, Iss. 1, (1998): 4-11.

ProQuest document link

ABSTRACT
For organisations to flourish, they need to engage the intelligence, creativity and energy of the whole workforce

and involve all stakeholders. One way of doing this is to use whole system approaches to planning and

implementing change and what have come to be known as large-group methods. This article makes a case for

these approaches and describes the major benefits, outlines their history and describes two well-tried methods:

future research and open space technology.

FULL TEXT

Bruce Nixon: Independent Consultant, Bruce Nixon Associates, Berkhamsted, Herts

”

We are going to win and the industrial West is going to lose out; there’s not much you can do about it because the

reasons for your failure are within yourselves. Your firms are built on the Taylor model. Even worse, so are your

heads. With your bosses doing the thinking while the workers wield the screwdrivers, you’re convinced deep down

that this is the right way to run a business. For you the essence of management is getting the ideas out of the

heads of the bosses and into the hands of labor.

We are beyond your mindset. Business, we know, is now so complex and difficult, the survival of firms so

hazardous in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued

existence depends on the day-to-day mobilisation of every ounce of intelligence. (Konosuke Matsushita, founder of

Matsushita Electric Ltd. Reproduced here with the permission of International Creative Management Inc.)”

Introduction

This is a two-part article to be published over two consecutive issues. The first part will explain why I have grown

interested in whole system work and large group interventions as they have come to be known. It will also outline

the case for using these approaches and the benefits they can bring. This part will describe two leading

approaches: future search and open space technology. Thesecond part will describe real time strategic change

and search conferences. My intention is to introduce you to these approaches and tell you where you can find out

more. The two-part article is based on a chapter in my forthcoming book Making a Difference – Strategies and

Tools for Transforming your Organisation being published early 1998 by Gilmour Drummond Publishing in Europe

and AMACON elsewhere in the

world.

My journey

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I experience a growing unease as I reflect on the work I have done over the years with directors, managers and

their teams.

It is all very well working at the top or in the middle but what about the mass of ordinary people in the organisation

“doing the actual work” of making things, providing services and dealing with customers? How much effect was

our work together actually having on the way things are on the shop floor or on the quality of product or service

received by the customer? I am not sure. Also these programmes were taking a long time to roll out. Where there

was an attempt to involve “ordinary workers”, it was in a diluted form in less affluent surroundings. What message

did that convey? Another reflection of our class attitudes perhaps.

I had other concerns, some more fundamental. Systems thinking tells us that in deciding the way forward or

resolving fundamental issues you need data about the whole system. People at the top or in the middle, inevitably,

only have data about part of the system. If good strategic decisions are to be made, data is required from people at

every level including the bottom and from people outside the system such as customers and suppliers. Of course

that data can be obtained, and often is, before decisions are made. But for maximum organisational learning to

take place, different stakeholders or people from different parts of the system need to be in the room together,

hearing and seeing the data being contributed. They all need to be listening to each other and the process needs to

be interactive. There needs to be a common or shared database built together by everyone in the room. People at

the bottom need to see people at the top taking on board what they have said, responding to it in a way that

demonstrates a change in attitude and actually behaving differently; showing that they really mean what they say

about involving people, valuing their contribution and wanting an empowered workforce. Also people at the bottom

need to be given the opportunity to act powerfully, speak their minds honestly without fear of adverse

consequences and take responsibility. Top management need to experience this and see that it works. People

need the experience of hearing diverse views expressed, sometimes with passion, and perhaps being moved by

this. They need to discover how constructive and valuable difference can be and have their fears and stereotypes

dispelled by a constructive experience that worked. In other words a huge amount of organisational learning can

take place only when you get the whole system into the room. Real sustainable change occurs when people

experience the paradigm shift that enables them to see beyond their small part of the system. For the organisation

to learn a different dance all the partners need to be present. Only those who are full-time participants really get

the benefit.

However, it is not only about making sound decisions and learning from each other. It is also about successful

implementation. For people to be committed to changes, they need to be involved in and informed by the process

of making those decisions and take responsibility for their part in implementing them. People can more easily

make appropriate day-to-day decisions when implementing a strategy they have been involved in creating.

I had another concern. Sometimes, in the work which colleagues and I had done with groups of directors and

managers, we had encountered dependency, counter-dependency, resistance to really doing serious work or taking

responsibility for the outcomes. Was this because we facilitated too much? Would this be less likely to happen if

we stood back more and gave everyone a share in facilitating small group work at least? That also fitted well with

my conclusion that people who become facilitators benefit most.

With these thoughts in my mind I started reading Marvin Weisbord’s Productive Workplaces (Weisbord, 1987) and I

organised a development programme for myself to learn about “large group interventions” i.e., ways of working

with much larger groups that make it possible to get representatives of the whole system working together in the

same room. I attended workshops which not only described the methods but gave me experience of how they work

either by my being a participant or through simulations. I looked in depth at four approaches.

– (1) future search;

– (2) open-space technology;

– (3) real-time strategic change;

– (4) search conferences.

In this article I shall do no more than introduce you to these four approaches (there are many others) and tell you

how you can find out more about them. As yet I have limited experience of using them and I have no big stories to

tell. I hope that will come later! The principles and methods have influenced all my work however and I suspect

they would influence yours.

The case for getting the whole system into the room

First I will summarise why I think these approaches need to be considered. Most of the work I have done over the

past 20 years has been with directors and managers. The concerns I have expressed above do notinvalidate this

kind of work, at the top and in the middle. Real-time management development (as I call my own version of

management development that combines working on the company’s real opportunities and issues with learning)

can have a powerful effect on individual managers who may then lead their organisations very differently (Nixon,

1996, 1998). It gives managers a new vision of how teams and groups can work together. It gives them some of

the tools. It is also a good way of going with the energy, acknowledging where the organisation is and starting

where you can. Like every good methodology it has its strengths and its limitations. It may offer you the best way

forward given where your organisation is. And it may gradually open your managers up to the possibility of “getting

the whole system into the room” – something for which the organisation was not ready when you started out.

This article may help you prepare yourself for when your clients are ready. To be ready to help your clients you too

may need a new mind-set.

I see essentially four possibilities for initiating transformation:

– (1) starting at the bottom and working up;

– (2) starting somewhere in the middle and working upwards, outwards and downwards;

– (3) starting at the top and cascading down;

– (4) getting the whole system into the room.

The first two are “starting where you can” strategies. The last two are possible when your client is the CEO of the

relevant system or sub-system. The last is appropriate when the CEO is really ready to share control which means

giving up some control. Not all CEOs are ready to do this but it is an essential pre-condition for successful work of

this kind.

Top-down approaches to bringing about change have limitations. Strategic decisions made by top management

may prove flawed because they were not informed by data possessed by people elsewhere in the system. Often

top management have difficulty gaining “buy-in” or the full commitment of the workforce because the latter do not

have a full appreciation of the situation and they were not involved in the decision making. Key messages may be

diluted as they pass down the organisation. Similarly there are obstacles to information passing upwards.

Traditional processes for communicating a new strategy are relatively lifeless as they are not sufficiently involving

or interactive. The top-down approach to change does not provide adequately for organisational learning.

Increasingly often today, traditional linear methods of making decisions are simply not up to the job because the

data involved is so complex and the situation is in a constant state of flux. Finally, the process of cascading

strategy downwards can take a very long time. That can be too long and thus, ultimately, too expensive in today’s

world.

Here are some of the major benefits of using large-group methods, or getting the whole system into the room.

– Decisions are informed by the whole system.

– A high degree of involvement and engagement and hence commitment is created.

– Collaborative behaviour is encouraged.

– There is a high degree of organisational learning and the organisation increases its capacity to adapt.

– People learn to value diversity and work with conflict.

– A sense of common vision and purpose is created.

– A huge groundswell of energy is generated to bring about change.

– Top management learn to let go of control and respond to feedback; people at the bottom (or in the middle) learn

to act powerfully and contribute more confidently.

– New organisational norms about how to behave are created.

– People learn how to cope with uncertainty, complexity, confusion and the fluctuating emotions involved in

planning strategic change.

– Top management can signal that they really are changing their way of bringing about change and managing the

company.

– A large number of people can be involved.

– A high degree of personal responsibility is encouraged – dependency and counter-dependency are minimised.

– People learn self-management and facilitation skills.

However large-group methods should not be contemplated where top management want to tell or sell, have no

intention of sharing power or implementing whatever has been decided in the event. They are only appropriate

when top management are genuinely committed to involving their workforce or co-creating with them. If they do

not respond honestly to feedback or demonstrate that they are “changing the way they do business”, more harm

than good will be done.

Background history

Large-group methods can be traced back to the collaboration of Fred Emery, an Australian, and Eric Trist at the

Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London, in the 1950s. Together they developed the first Search Conference

in 1960. Two British aero-engine companies had recently merged to form Bristol Siddeley. The purpose of this

conference, to be known as the Barford Conference, was to help the newly formed company create unified

strategy, mission, leadership and values. After the Barford Conference, Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery, Eric Trist and

others facilitated hundreds of Search Conferences in North America, Australia and elsewhere over the years. The

Search Conference also inspired the later development of Future Search (Weisbord, 1987; Weisbord and Janoff,

1995); the work of Dannemiller Tyson Associates in developing interactive strategic planning and real time work

design; and real time strategic change (Jacobs, 1994).

Recent examples of well known US companies using large-group methods are: Marriott Hotels who have used

them to embed quality methods into the company worldwide; the Ford Motor Company using large-group

interventions as part of their successful strategy to turn around their business; Boeing using the methodology to

plan and build the 777 in record time. In the UK the approach has been used very successfully in the Employment

Service.

Each of the four approaches I shall describe offers a generic model. None of these approaches is merely an event.

The event is only a stage in a much longer process for bringing about change preceding and following the event.

Future Search

The Future Search Conference is a method developed by Marvin Weisbord in the 1980s for involving a wide range

of interdependent “stakeholders” in an organisation orcommunity in working together to build a picture of the

desired future they want and plan to bring it about. A typical Future Search Conference gets 30 to 70 (ideally 64)

people into one large room for 16 hours work spread over three days (two overnights). Participants from all levels

are selected to represent eight carefully chosen stakeholder groups. The approach departs from top-down

meetings or consultation. Its purpose is to enable the stakeholders to take responsibility for co-creating their

desired future and planning to bring it about.

At its very simplest the Future Search design is:

– past – where we have been;

– present – where we are;

– future – what we want;

– action – how we get there.

Certain basics underly the design of a Future Search Conference. These are:

– “whole system” in the room;

– global exploration before local action;

– future focus and common ground;

– self-management and responsibility.

Fundamental to the approach are: representation of all those who have a stake in the outcome, have key data to

contribute and who will play a crucial part in implementation; creating together the big picture and an

understanding of it before deciding and planning action; focussing on the desired state and what is agreed rather

than problems and conflicts which are relatively unproductive and sap energy; and finally people managing

themselves and taking individual responsibility. All these enhance the chances of successful outcomes.

The generic design has five main stages:

– (1) Review the past: milestones in global society, self and our organisation or community. Individual work, then

everyone writes on huge wall chart. Stakeholder groups identify trends and patterns.

– (2) Explore the present: stakeholder groups identify trends affecting our future; identify priorities, what we are

doing about them and what we need to do; what we are doing that we are proud of and what we are sorry about.

– (3) Create ideal future scenarios: mixed groups prepare an ideal future for the organisation or community and

dramatise it to the whole conference, presenting the future as if they were there.

– (4) Identify common ground: mixed groups and then the whole conference identify the common ground future (all

agreed), ways to work towards it (projects) and unresolved differences (“not agreed” list).

– (5) Make action plans – cooperating and taking individual responsibility: stakeholder and volunteer groups make

plans to bring about the common ground future, steps they will actually take and report back to the conference.

The basic methodology is as follows.

Before the conference

– The event is carefully planned by a steering committee of eight to ten people representing the stakeholders.

– Great care goes into ensuring participants represent a broad spectrum of viewpoints.

– The purpose of the event is clearly defined.

– Top leaders’ backing and their agreement to be there only as full-time participants and support whatever

outcomes emerge are secured.

– Three to six months lead time.

During the conference

– People work in eight groups of eight (hence the ideal number of 64 participants), either stakeholder groups or

mixed groups as appropriate.

– There is a mixture of work done individually, work done in groups or work done in the whole group (not always in

that order).

– Large wall spaces covered in white paper or created by cutting up the charts of groups are used for the work of

the whole group. Self-adhesive coloured dots enable people to vote on priorities.

– There is a high degree of self-managed learning and planning; groups facilitate themselves, everyone taking turns

as discussion leader, time-keeper, recorder and reporter.

– Two facilitators run the event as a whole, managing task and time boundaries, handling large group process

issues, avoiding creating dependency and counter-dependency, not getting involved with small groups or with

content issues.

– Administrators provide the small groups with briefing papers, worksheets and take care of logistics.

– There are no top management or expert lecturers – top managers or experts are included as participants; no

training sessions.

– The focus is on common ground and shared desired future; differences are acknowledged but not worked on.

– The focus is also on discovery, learning and cooperating rather than hierarchy, power, conflict, passivity,

adversarial behaviour and dependency.

– Everyone takes individual responsibility for planning action to bring about the desired future.

Certain groundrules need to be accepted by the conference. These are:

– all ideas are valid – respecting everyone’s truth;

– everything on flip charts;

– listen to each other;

– observe time frames;

– seek common ground and action – not problems and conflicts.

Among essential conditions for success are the full-time attendance of all participants, healthy meeting conditions

and taking public responsibility for follow-up.

My experience of the methodology is that it is excellent in helping people learn that they can cope with a mass of

complex and confusing data, making sense of it by trusting the right-hand, intuitive part of the brain. Particularly

through dramatising the future (in stage 3 of the conference design) they learn to bring to bear all their creative,

not only rational, faculties. And people experience and learn how to cope with the “roller-coaster” of their feelings

at various stages of the process of getting on board, facing the complex mess that seems outside their control,

owning up to what they are doing and want to do, becoming energised and excited by their vision, and finally

realistically planning what they will do. People also learn a great deal about diversity and difference. Working

productively with people who are different breaks down stereotypes and encourages respect. They find that

constructive outcomes and much learning are the result of listening to each other, accepting that everyone’s

opinion is valid and focussing on common ground rather than problems and conflicts. I think people are usually

surprised that whilst conflicts and differences are expressed and not avoided, there is a huge amount of common

ground. That is enough to enable people to move forward in constructive action planning. The methodology also

maximises the chance that people will take responsibility and not engage in dependency and counter-dependency

perhaps because everyone is encouraged to actively contribute from the very start and take a turn in facilitating

their group.

Future Search is firmly limited to about 70 people. That is the maximum number that, in the experience of the co-

creators (Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff), works well. So what about the people who were not involved?

Catering to their needs has to be a major issue for the Action Planning stage. Alternatively additional or parallel

Future Search Conferences can be held.

Future Search seems to be an excellent approach to use in a community or an organisation where leaders are

prepared to co-create with other stakeholders. It is particularly suited to creating sustainable development plans

for Local Agenda 21[1]. It has been widely used in the USA, Canada, Australia and Scandinavia (Weisbord, 1987).

Open Space Technology

As I have only experienced this approach at professional and personal development conferences, not yet for a

business purpose except in my own version of it, I asked my friend, Martin Leith to write this section for me. Here is

his account.

Open Space Technology (OST) was developed in 1984 by Harrison Owen, an American organisational consultant. It

is a method for organising a self-managed meeting or conference, the programme of which is created by the

participants themselves. The method enables people to create and manage an agenda of workshops, discussion

groups and other sessions in which they discuss the things that really matter to them, explore issues and

opportunities and find new ways forward. An Open Space conference has no invited speakers, just one facilitator

who explains the procedure and facilitates the plenary sessions. Although OST tends to be regarded as a meeting-

management method, its principles can be applied to create a whole new way for people to work together in

organisations.

Most Open Space conferences take place over one, two or three days. A typical one-day conference would have

four Open Space timeslots, for example 10.00 to 11.30,11.30 to 13.00, 14.00 to 15.30 and 15.30 to 17.00, each with

a number of different sessions taking place in parallel.

The approach is suitable for any size of group. Twelve is probably the minimum number of people, and the

capacity of the venue is the only factor that limits the maximum group size. An Open Space conference with 500

participants would not be unusual.

When to use Open Space Technology

OST is a highly effective method for surfacing people’s heartfelt concerns, exploring strategic issues and

opportunities, promoting discussion and decision making, developing action plans with a high degree of

ownership, and transforming a group of disparate people into a vibrant community. The method should be

considered whenever a project involves high levels of complexity, diversity and conflict and decisions need to be

made quickly.

Principles

– Provide the absolute minimum of structure and control.

– Participants are encouraged to display passion and responsibility.

– Participants self-manage everything except the plenary sessions, including the development of the agenda, the

Open Space sessions and the production of the session reports.

– “Whoever comes is the right person”: even if only one person shows up at a session, this will be exactly the right

person to do the work that needs to be done.

– “Whenever it starts is the right time”: if a session starts earlier or later than the advertised time, that is OK. No one

need get impatient or feel anxious.

– “Whatever happens is the only thing that could happen”: in other words, let go of expectations.

– “When it’s over, it’s over”: if everything has been said, move on.

– If a participant is in a session and is not giving or receiving anything useful, they should use “The law of two feet”

to move to wherever a worthwhile contribution can be made.

Methodology

– Potential participants receive an invitation that shows the title of the conference. This should be neither too

general nor too specific, for example: What are the issues and opportunities facing the XYZ Corporation?

– People arrive at the venue and take their seats in the plenary room. The chairs are arranged in a circle to indicate

that everyone is a leader.

– The facilitator welcomes people and explains the Open Space principles and procedure.

– Participants offer as many sessions as they wish. Those offering sessions prepare a handwritten poster, make a

brief announcement to the whole group and tape the poster to one of the walls. This wall becomes the conference

agenda. A meeting space is booked by taking a Post-it Note from a matrix showing times and places and attaching

it to the poster (Figure 1).

– The “marketplace” commences. Everyone signs up for the sessions they wish to attend.

– The Open Space sessions take place. One participant in each session takes notes and produces a written report

using the computers and printers located in the “News Room”. One copy of each report is taped to the wall under

the banner “Breaking News” to create a conference newspaper.

– The conference closes with a plenary session during which participants return to the circle, reflect on their

experiences and share them with the others. Sometimes participants get together before this final session to

prioritise actions arising from the different sessions and form self-managing project teams.

– As people leave the conference they are handed a copy of all the session reports.

– In the weeks and months following the conference individuals, project teams and informal groups carry out the

agreed actions and keep everyone informed about progress.

Results delivered

– people’s genuine concerns are identified;

– creative and relevant ideas are developed;

– concrete action plans are specified and committed to;

– on-going self-managed teams are established;

– productive working relationships are created;

– new behaviours are practised and become the norm.

Open Space Technology has been used successfully in most parts of the world. European organisations employing

the method include Dutch Railways, Guinness, ICI, Prudential Assurance and Shell. Despite a long and growing list

of success stories, Open Space Technology should never be regarded as an easy option. It should not even be

considered if anyone wants to exercise control, when the answer is already known or when the achievement of a

specific outcome is essential. But for those who are willing to step into the unknown and allow the unexpected to

happen, Open Space has the potential to produce breakthrough results.

This concludes the first part of this article. Part II, appearing in the next issue, will describe Real Time Strategic

Change and Search Conferences and draw some conclusions.

Note

At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, world leaders signed a global environment and development

action plan called Agenda 21. Over two-thirds of this plan required the commitment and cooperation of local

authorities to implement. Each local authority was encouraged to create its own sustainable development

strategy, through local participation, known as its Local Agenda 21.

References and further reading

1. Bunker, B. and Alban, B. (1992, “Large group interventions”, special issue of theJournal of Applied Behavioural

Science, Vol. 28 No. 4, December.

2. Bunker, B. and Alban, B. (1997, Large Group Interventions, Energising the Whole System for Rapid Change,

Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

3. Jacobs, R. (1994, Real Time Strategic Change, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA.

4. Leith, M. (1997, “Guide to large group interventions”, Source: Martin Leith, PO Box 4YY, London WlA 4YY. E-mail

mleith@mleith.com.

5. Nixon, B. (1996, “Real time management development”, Organisations and People, Vol. 3 No. 4, November.

6. Nixon, B. (1998, Making a Difference: Strategies and Tools for Transforming Your Organisation, Gilmour

Drummond Publishing, Cambridge, and AMACOM, USA.

7. Pascale, R. (1991, Managing on the Edge, Penguin Books..

8. Owen, H. (1997, “Open space technology – a users guide”, Berrett-Keohler, USA.

9. Weisbord, M. (1987, Productive Workplaces – Organising and Managing for Dignity, Meaning and Community,

Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

10. Weisbord, M. and Janoff, S. (1995, Future Search, Berrett-Keohler, San Francisco, CA.

Illustration

Caption: Figure 1; Open space matrix

DETAILS

Subject: Open systems; Methods; Future; History; Advantages; Guidelines; International;

Strategic planning; Employee involvement; Organizational change; Organizational

learning

Business indexing term: Subject: Strategic planning Employee involvement Organizational change

Organizational learning

Classification: 9150: Guidelines; 5240: Software &systems; 2320: Organizational structure; 2200:

Managerial skills; 9180: International

Publication title: Industrial and Commercial Training; Guilsborough

Volume: 30

Issue: 1

Pages: 4-11

Number of pages: 0

Publication year: 1998

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Publication date: 1998

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Place of publication: Guilsborough

Country of publication: United Kingdom, Guilsborough

Publication subject: Business And Economics–Management, Business And Economics–Personnel

Management

ISSN: 00197858

e-ISSN: 17585767

CODEN: ILCTAU

Source type: Scholarly Journal

Language of publication: English

Document type: Feature

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00197859810197681

ProQuest document ID: 214108987

Document URL: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/creating-futures-we-desire-getting-

whole-system/docview/214108987/se-2?accountid=28844

Last updated: 2021-09-09

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Creating the futures we desire – getting the whole system into the room: part I

3 Preparation and design

If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first hour sharpening the ax.
(Abraham Lincoln, US President)

Luck favours the mind that is prepared.
(Louis Pasteur, scientist)

In advance

Many, possibly even most, of the problems that lie in wait to discomfit a
facilitator are caused by lack of preparation, or the wrong kind of preparation.
Here are some typical difficulties:

The event never got off to a proper start. The participants seemed
confused about my role. One asked another in a loud whisper, ‘Who’s
that woman? What’s she here for?’

I was facilitating an event for a group working in music and the arts.
I was challenged 30 minutes in by a participant who wanted to know
by what right I was leading the discussion since I clearly knew noth-
ing about opera.

(Organization development consultants)

It was supposedly a team-building day. After an hour I noticed some
restlessness in the group. Two of the journalists spoke up. One said
that he’d thought the meeting was going to end at lunchtime and he
had a piece to write so couldn’t stay. The other said he’d thought it
was going to be about the relaunch of the sports segment.

(Internal consultant, BBC)

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My heart sank when I realised we’d got to the end of the morning and
had still only dealt with two of the items on our long agenda. The
choice then was, hurtle through the afternoon or openly confess to
the client and renegotiate – in other words have the conversation we
should have had in advance.

(Team coach)

Note: if you are reading this as a manager or meetings-chair, then you are
your own client and should go direct to the section headed Designing: basic
principles (p. 64).

The case for planning carefully

The purpose of investing time thoughtfully is to prevent any of these common
problems occurring. Specifically, it is to uncover the answers to questions like
these:

• Who is the real client?
• What are the underlying needs?
• Where are the ‘elephants’ (p. 8) and what are they?
• How is the culture of the organization likely to affect the outcomes of

the event?

• Who in the group really has the power and influence?
• What might sabotage this event?
• Who must be there – and who should not be there?
• What is the true purpose of the event and how achievable is it given

the resources available?

• Can I work with this client and group?

There are several stages that it is vital to go through, usefully described as ‘the
consulting cycle’ (see Figure 3.1).

The consulting cycle

It is essential to pay attention to all its phases. The most common mistake
made by inexperienced facilitators is to jump from phase 1, ‘gaining entry’ to
phase 6, ‘implementing’. When you do this it more or less guarantees failure.
This chapter is about the first five phases of this cycle. ‘Delivering’ and ‘evalu-
ating’ are the subjects of other chapters.

56 FACILITATING GROUPS

Rogers, Jenny. Facilitating Groups, McGraw-Hill Education, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/trident/detail.action?docID=557107.
Created from trident on 2022-01-07 14:24:32.
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Phase 1 Gaining entry

Critical question: are you the right person for the job?

The gaining entry phase is about establishing sufficient trust for the client to
work with you and for you to feel that you have whatever the client needs.
There are virtually always barriers to gaining entry. If you are an internal con-
sultant your clients may believe that you lack the seniority to deal with their
group. If you are an external consultant you may have to engage in a pro-
longed sales cycle where clients appear reluctant to hire you because you cost
real money.

This phase is about establishing your credibility. You will do this by listen-
ing carefully to the client’s concerns, talking judiciously about experience
with other clients (but without betraying their confidentiality) and clarifying
in outline that you are available and interested. Remember that you can refuse
the assignment at this stage if it appears unlikely that you can meet the client’s
needs.

The gaining entry meeting will also help you establish who the real client
is. The real client is the person who is footing any bills, who has the ultimate
power to decide on the usefulness of the day and whether or not to implement
any of its suggested outcomes. This is not necessarily the same as the person
who initially contacts you. So your first question to yourself should always be,
‘Am I talking to the real client?’

Figure 3.1 The seven stages of the consulting cycle

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 57

Phase 2 Contracting

Critical questions: Can we work together? Is what the client wants
achievable with the resources available?

The contracting meeting comes down to two main areas: task and relationship.
Both are equally important. At the task level, the question is What does the client
want to get out of the event? From your point of view, you will have a matching
question, What do I as a facilitator believe needs to happen during the event?

At the relationship level, the question for both sides, not often put so
bluntly as this, is ‘Can we work together?’

Getting the task clear

Over the years I have been doing this work, I have come to rely on a few
important questions for the client at this kind of meeting. If you ask these, you
should find that they give you pricelessly valuable information:

What’s the presenting issue here?

What makes you feel that this event is essential?

What makes it an issue right now?

These questions give you some idea of what is on the client’s mind, and will
tell you what the symptoms are, not necessarily the underlying causes. The
answers may be things such as, ‘People don’t get on very well here’, or ‘We
need to agree a new strategy for x or y product’, or ‘This is a new team and we
need to take some time to get to know each other’.

Let’s suppose the event goes really well and this problem were solved. What
would be happening? What evidence would you have that things were going
really well?

This question lifts the client out of the possible gloom of the answer to the
first question by concentrating on the positive and gives you vital further
information about the scope and depth of the issues.

What’s preventing that ideal from happening now?

The answers here will give you some idea of underlying causes of the problem –
they may for instance show that other departments are involved, that
people other than those who are going to be present on the day are also
important.

58 FACILITATING GROUPS

What have you already tried?

It would be unusual for a client not to have tried many of the obvious
solutions. Finding out what these have been will prevent you suggesting them
and will invariably point you to the more serious underlying issues.

How might you (client) be contributing to this problem? Alternative
version of the question: How are you getting in your own way here?

It is axiomatic that all clients, however wonderfully well adapted they appear,
will have contributed to the issue in some way, even if it is only through
benign neglect. Asking this question, and surfacing the answer, prevents cli-
ents from believing that if only everyone else would change, life would be
rosy. It is always useful for any of us to see that we are part of both the problem
and the solution.

So how do you see the event I am going to be running for you helping to solve
these problems?

The answers here give you some idea of whether the client’s hopes for the day
are realistic or, as they often are, overambitious. For instance, it is highly
unlikely that a team whose personal relationships are viciously antagonistic
will end up wildly happy after a single event. If so, then a series of events is
more likely to be productive, but the client may say that they can afford
neither the time nor the money that this would involve.

What ideas do you have about what should definitely be in the day?

Many clients have much experience of being facilitated and will have a shrewd
idea of what will work and what will fail. Some may have favourite techniques
that they have seen other facilitators use with success. Listen carefully and
measure the client’s ideas against your own judgement about what will work
and what will not – including how you rate your own skill and familiarity with
any particular techniques that are proposed.

Who should be present?

The most appropriate answer may well have emerged through the replies to
the earlier questions. Clients may want a huge number of people, far too many
to be successfully facilitated by one person, or they may suggest a group that
seems too small because so many of the people who have a stake in the
outcome are not going to be there.

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 59

What do I need to know about the individuals who will be coming?

You will be talking to all these people yourself as part of your preparation
(see ‘Gathering data’ opposite) but you also need your client’s views
on them. This is the place to establish from the client’s perspective who
might be challenging, who will be supportive and who might attempt
sabotage.

Clarifying and building the relationship

Facilitating an event for clients mean that you share the power. You respect
clients for their knowledge of the people and the issues. Clients respect you
for your objectivity and expertise as a facilitator. So at the contracting meeting
it will be important to discuss issues such as:

• Who makes the final decision on the design of the day?
• What reservations do you have about working with me or about the

outcome of the day? (Clients always have some so it is better to get
them said out loud.)

• How do you see my role?

At the same time as asking these questions of the client, you will have matters
of your own that you will want to raise. The main ones are:

• What you expect from the client. These may be issues such as com-
menting on your draft design, booking the room, sending instruc-
tions about the venue, and briefing participants.

• What additional information you will want to gather, including
interviewing participants.

• The boundaries of confidentiality.

Contracting traps

The main trap is of overpromising. If you really think it is impossible to cover
everything the client wants, then the contracting meeting is the place and
time to say so – not during or after the event, by which stage it will be far too
late. If there is too little time, too little money, or both, then say so. It is rare for
clients to hold out for everything they originally ask for when faced with
respectful logic about how it is going to be impossible to deliver. For instance,
if a manager asks you to facilitate a meeting where 30 people are going to be
present, depending on the style of event, you may want to suggest that you
need a co-facilitator and that this will cost money. The client may be reluctant

60 FACILITATING GROUPS

to accept that this is necessary or may say that as much as they would like to do
it, they do not have the budget. Your choices then are:

• Continue to make the case for the extra person and budget and hope
that the client caves in.

• Ask if the client has anyone available internally who might make an
acceptable extra facilitator.

• Rethink the design of the day so that you can do it alone competently.
• Subsidize the extra facilitator yourself or bring in a trainee as an

unpaid helper.

• Wish client good luck and walk away.

The last option may feel like the most difficult, but sometimes it may be better
than living with the feelings of dread associated with knowing that you cannot
do good work on impossible terms.

There will also be issues about time-scales, fees, if any, and venues. The
contracting meeting is the place to deal with them all. For instance, be clear
about how important the venue is and surface any reservations about a venue
you know to be shabby, noisy or uncomfortable. It is normally unwise, for
instance, to hold an important awayday on site. People literally see things
from the same old perspective, get distracted by thoughts of their emails and
other allegedly important duties and find it difficult to give themselves wholly
to the task in hand.

Phase 3 Gathering data

Critical questions at this stage: How can you acquire a reliable view of the
issues as seen by the other participants? How can you build rapport with
them? How far are the client’s views shared?

If you rely solely on your commissioning client’s view of the issues, you risk
creating severe problems on the day: people challenging your role and author-
ity, telling you that you have missed the ‘real’ problems, acting out, seeing
you as partial because the only person you have spoken to is the boss. As a
minimum, aim to talk to a representative sample of the people who will be
present. You need your client’s active help to make this happen, fixing dates
and times and alerting them to the contact. Ideally, talk to them all, assuming
it is no more than a dozen people.

Interviews

You will need a minimum of 30 minutes with each person. If it is a large group
then you can do the interviews in pairs or trios, but accept that you will get less

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 61

candour. Make notes, but keep these to the main points. One of the other
purposes of such interviews is to build rapport with participants, and you
cannot do this if your head is in a notebook all the time. Again, there are a few
questions that I have always found to be a useful core to such interviews with
follow-up exploration on each one. Assure the person of non-attributable
confidentiality; that is, you will not quote any individuals to the client or
anyone else. Treat this promise seriously.

• Ask if they have any concerns about the interview and what they
know about its purpose. Explain what the role of the facilitator is and
what they will see you doing on the day.

• Ask about their role and history in the organization.

Now ask:

• What’s going really well here? Ask for specific examples.
• What’s not going so well? Ask for specific examples.
• If things were at their best, what would be happening?
• What’s preventing things being at their best?
• If you could ask an oracle any two questions about the future, what

would they be?

• What would having those answers do for you?
• If this team/group/organization played a sport or game, what would it

be good at and bad at? Answers will tell you a great deal about how
people see the group. For instance, a team whose members reply that
they would be good at chess and bad at football will suggest that
people see themselves as intellectual rivals and have difficulty
cooperating.

• What are you hoping to get out of the day I will be facilitating
for you?

• Is there anything else you would like to tell me? This last question is
often the one that GPs call the handle-on-the-door question – the
thing the patient has really wanted to say all along and can only
muster courage to name at the last moment. Some necessary but
uncomfortable truth is often blurted out at this stage.

Aim to include a verbal or written summary of their main themes on the day
itself as well as feeding the themes back to your commissioner in advance of
the event. Not only is this courteous for the people who have given you their
time, but also most people are intensely curious to see where and how their
own views fit in with those of others. The report itself is also a further stimulus
to change.

62 FACILITATING GROUPS

Observation

Observation is a simple technique and often overlooked. This could involve
you sitting in on meetings, shadowing the client or touring the client’s area
of operations. There are three issues with observation which you need to
remember:

• your own biases
• your presence will alter whatever it is you are observing
• that it takes a very mature client to agree to the process

When you visit the client’s premises, notice everything: what is on the walls,
the state of the rooms, how you are greeted and treated. These things will have
become invisible to the clients, but they are valuable data for you. Some years
ago I was asked to meet a team at a small public sector organization to discuss a
project. I arrived in plenty of time only to find that I could not actually get into
the building. As I pressed a buzzer outside, I could clearly see a post-room and
people working in it. They resolutely ignored me – one actually shrugged his
shoulders. The building itself was in the middle of what appeared to be a traffic
island and gave every appearance of being a gated community, earnestly
devoted to repelling hostile outsiders, despite the stated commitment on their
website to easy access for their user groups. Once at last inside the building
I was left to find my own way via a labyrinthine route to the meeting room.
This told me about their culture and some of their problems just as quickly and
vividly as could have been achieved through conversation.

Secondary data

These are already existing records; for example, turnover, absenteeism, annual
reports, grievances and minutes of meetings. Expect some bias as all organiza-
tions record data selectively. Access to records may also be a problem: ask for
your client’s help if you encounter blockages. Remember that there are no
such things as objective data: all are filtered by the collecting agent, con-
sciously or unconsciously. When a client encourages you to collect data prior
to the event, in the end they are paying for your hunches, your experience and
your developed intuition. You are not doing an academic study in search of
‘truth’: your aim is to help move the group on in whatever way seems most
achievable. Whatever route you take into a group will lead you eventually to
the issues that need attention. The impact you can have will, however, depend
on you and your style. This is more important than any specific methodology
you use.

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 63

Phase 4 Feeding back the data

Critical question at this stage: How far does the client agree with your
synthesis of the data?

There is no point in collecting data for the event if you do not feed it back to
the client in an actual discussion, not just an email exchange. At the feedback
meeting you will need sensitivity that acknowledges the client’s anxiety,
defensiveness, fear and hopes. The ultimate aim is for the client group to own
the results as part of the preparation for the time you will be spending
together. Your data-gathering may contain some shocks for the client. Even
where there is nothing that is actually new to them, they may reel from seeing
and hearing it from a third party. During the meeting remember that client
criticisms and defensiveness are not aimed at you personally. Use descriptive
rather than evaluative words: be specific, brief, focused and crisp. Do not
hedge the tough bits, do emphasize the positive and agree changes to any
report you intend to present to the whole group.

Designing: basic principles

Critical questions at this stage: How can I design an event that meets the
client’s and group’s needs and is also interesting, thought-provoking and
lively?

The overall aim of this phase is to consider the focus and purpose of the event
you will be facilitating. Often it will need completely rethinking at this point,
and a further discussion with the client will become an absolute necessity, as
the experience of these facilitators makes clear:

I interviewed the senior team individually. Far from seeing the main
issue as the quality of customer care at the front end of the organisa-
tion, they all saw it as a poisoned culture stemming from the Board
and Executive team, of which my client was a member. After some
blustering and protesting, all very understandable, my client agreed
that we needed a total redesign of the day.

A newly appointed boss wanted me to start the process of team-
building. The interviews showed a preoccupation with one member:
someone who everyone in the group believed had been the personal
pet of the previous boss. This had been hinted at in my previous
meeting with the boss but now it was on the table. We had to agree
what, if anything, he was prepared to do, as to leave it to hang in the

64 FACILITATING GROUPS

air on the day was no longer possible and the nature of the event itself
needed a radical re-think.

In designing an event, there are a number of factors it is useful to bear in mind.

How people learn: the learning cycle

The old Chinese saying put it best:

I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.

A facilitated day is built on this assumption – that we learn most readily when
we actively participate. The idea of the learning cycle is also helpful. This was
first advocated by the US academic David Kolb (1984) and his ideas have been
widely accepted since. The assumption is that to learn, we need to experience a
four-stage process (see Figure 3.2):

1 experiencing
2 reflecting and observing: thinking about the experience
3 theorizing: seeing where the experience fits in with theoretical ideas
4 applying and problem-solving: testing out the ideas and experiences

and giving them a practical application

These ideas have been given further life by the work of Peter Honey and Alan
Mumford (1992), who developed the idea that most of us do indeed learn best
when learning encompasses the whole cycle, but that we also will tend to have
one or two favoured styles. They developed a learning styles questionnaire to

Figure 3.2 A four-stage learning cycle

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 65

identify which your favourite style or styles are. The categories reflect the Kolb
learning cycle. You may be able to identify your own favourite through these
descriptions (see Table 3.1).

Activists

Like Dislike
Doing and experiencing. Give them a role
play or a game and they are into it before
you have even finished giving them the
instructions. Eager participants in
discussion

Sitting around for too long; too much
theorizing; anything that looks like
slacking of the pace; working alone;
reading

Reflectors

Like Dislike
Above all time – to think, to watch, to
ponder. Want to see how others do things
first. Enjoy reading. Need some solitude
to absorb ideas

Being hurried; having to do things
without preparation; going first; games
and role plays where the intention is
not crystal clear; crammed timetable;
having to spend too much time with
other people

Theorists

Like Dislike
Ideas and abstract concepts; knowing
where something fits in with a general
framework; being stretched by new
notions; reading; lectures; analysis and
logic

Ambiguity; open-endedness; anything
that seems frivolous; not being able to
question and be sceptical; timetables
that lack structure

Pragmatists

Like Dislike
Activity that answers the question:
what does this mean for me in ‘the real
world’?; opportunities to problem-solve;
concrete application; useful tools and
techniques

Anything that looks woolly or abstract;
anything that seems set too far in the
future to have meaning now

Table 3.1

66 FACILITATING GROUPS

These ideas are helpful. First, your own prejudices and inclinations will
affect how you instinctively design the event. For instance, if, like me, your
preference is to be ‘activist’, you will want to pack in far too much activity and
will not allow for enough time to reflect. This will leave the ‘reflectors’ in your
group highly frustrated. You may be drawn to theory – at the expense of the
pragmatic – and so on. This, among many other reasons, is why it is an excel-
lent idea to design an event with another facilitator as it guards against
indulging your own prejudices and preferences.

Second, it is important to remember that all phases of the learning cycle
need to be included. You can be flexible about this. You might think of the
event as a series of mini learning cycles. For instance, you might have a
40-minute session in a facilitated event with a team where the activities listed
in Table 3.2 happen.

This whole phase is relatively short, but each part of the learning cycle has
been visited.

Varying the size of the group

Even where you are working with a small number of people, there will be
advantages in varying the size of the group.

A group larger than six to eight people inhibits participation. In fact, par-
ticipation diminishes sharply with the increase in the number of people. With
six people, everyone will speak, even the most reticent. With eight people, two
or three people will noticeably speak less. With 12, you will begin to see a

Activity Comments

Team leader gives 10 minute highly structured
introduction to possible changes coming up in near
future, linking them to changes in the industry

Will appeal to the theorists

Facilitator invites 10 minutes of immediate
discussion and reaction

The activists will spring to
life

Each member of the group now spends five minutes
solo encouraged to jot some ideas down on paper on
the theme of ‘how will this affect me?’

An activity for the reflectors

Whole group now discusses: what are the practical
implications here for our business?

Will appeal to the
pragmatists

Table 3.2

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 67

pattern where the most confident individuals speak a lot more than anyone
else. By the time you get to more than 20, discussion may be dominated by
two or three people. Varying group size also varies the tone, pace and style of
the event and discourages too great a concentration of learning styles of one
type. If you are able to influence the numbers attending the event, 12 is a
magically useful number of people. You can work comfortably as a whole
group, but the group can also split nicely into two sixes, three quartets, four
trios or six pairs.

Where you use small groups, think carefully about any reporting back to
the larger group. There is nothing more tedious than hearing four more or less
identical presentations on the same topic. Avoid this by using some or all these
tactics:

• Asking each group in turn for one idea from their group and then
keeping on going around the groups in this way until you have
exhausted their ideas.

• Giving each group a different brief.
• Strictly controlling the reporting back time to five minutes only.

Being realistic about time

In a whole-day facilitated event, you essentially have no more than six blocks
of time available because you will be using at least 90 minutes for breaks of one
kind or another. Never be tempted to try to stretch the time by lengthening
the day or by asking people to go without breaks – the human brain and body
simply do not cope well with this and the only result will be droopy or resent-
ful people. I have a blank template in my computer with the typical slots
shown in a grid. If you have the luxury of planning the day with a co-
facilitator, then it can work well to draw out the same grid on a flip chart and
to play with ideas by writing them individually on Post-it notes and shifting
them around, adding some, removing others until you have a workable
design.

Some design ideas
There is an inexhaustible store of ideas for use on facilitated events. My aim
here is to give a flavour of some of those I come back to time and time again
and is not intended to be a comprehensive collection. While some design ideas
are multi-purpose, most fall into natural categories that match the flow of an
event and that is how I shall deal with them here.

68 FACILITATING GROUPS

Warming up

Introduction from the leader/boss

The person who has commissioned you should start the event. Never let this
morph into a full-scale speech or lecture where the boss drones on, killing the
spirit of the occasion before it has started. Brief your client to spend five min-
utes and no more than ten minutes reiterating:

• The purpose of the event: something that combines challenge with
optimism. It is important to have an upbeat tone.

• The specific outcomes he/she is looking for.
• The importance of everyone contributing their ideas freely.
• The role he/she will be playing during the day; that is, as just another

participant.

When you have briefed yourself thoroughly, it is most unlikely that there will
be any unpleasant surprises at this point. However, it is still possible. At one
such event, despite having interviewed each member of his team, we had an
explosion of emotion during the first half hour of an event I was facilitating for
a directorate under extreme pressure after an unflattering report from its regu-
lator. The moment the director, my client, had finished his five-minute intro,
one of his colleagues suddenly dived underneath the table, pulled out a totter-
ing in-tray, and shoving it forcefully across the table at his boss shouted, ‘This
is what I have to deal with! This is my in-tray and real work! If you think I’ve
got time for this rubbishy event, then you deal with it!’

The group froze with horror, but my response was to say quietly that if he
really felt he needed to return to the office to deal with this ‘real work’, then he
should feel absolutely free to do so, and I waited calmly while he decided what
he would do. Naturally, he stayed, though it did not surprise me to hear that
several months later he had left the organization on what were described as
health grounds.

Creating ground rules

Making a verbal contract with the group is an important way of building trust.
It is also the way that you are explicitly granted the informal power to run the
event. A contract is a two-way process: what you (group) expect from me and
what I (facilitator) expect from you (group).

Some powerful questions here are:

• How do you see my role?

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 69

• What can I most usefully do here?
• (Where the group is going to meet over a period of time) How should

my role change as we get further into our meetings?

• What do you definitely not want me to do?

This process surfaces the group’s expectations and needs. Commonly, they
will suggest that you challenge time-wasting, control the over-eloquent and
offer feedback. It may also be useful to agree a set of ground rules around how
the group wants to behave. These ground rules typically have two themes:

1 Values-based behaviour: A typical set of such ground rules might con-
cern confidentiality, openness, trust and how the group wants to
handle strong emotion.

2 Practicalities: mobiles, pagers, punctuality, whether or not it is all right
to leave early, whether, if you are running the session on the group’s
premises, it is acceptable to return to offices during breaks.

Where groups are used to ‘being facilitated’ (or ‘awaydayed to death’ as one
client described it wearily) this part of the discussion may be treated in a
cynical, mechanistic way. If you think this is a risk, draw out from the group
what behaviours will go with ‘trust’ and ‘openness’ by asking the following
questions.

How would we know we were being ‘open’?

What are the boundaries of the confidentiality?

Words like ‘openness’ and ‘confidentiality’ can trip far too easily off our
tongues as participants and we may take them no more seriously than New
Year resolutions – broken in the face of the first temptation. In fact, assume
that they will be broken. Confidentiality in particular is easily agreed during
the event, but it may be difficult to draw realistic boundaries for it in practice.
You may also want to explore with the group how they want you to work with
them on such issues. For instance, where strong emotion is concerned, you
might want to say:

So if strong emotion appears in the discussion, how do you see my role here?

Keep the flip chart of ground rules visible so that when the group reviews its
process, you – and they – can assess how far such ground rules were actually
observed.

70 FACILITATING GROUPS

Your side of the ground rules process

The ground rules conversation is often conducted one-sidedly: a set of sugges-
tions or demands from the group. In an adult–adult relationship the process of
contracting should also model the partnership. Once you have heard the
group’s suggestions, to which you may or may not agree, it is appropriate to
make your own, to which the group may or may not agree. These will depend
on your own style and on the purpose of the event. My own suggestions all
have to do with accelerating the process of creating trust.

Only one at a time: one problem, one person, one issue.

Suggesting this discipline to the group can have considerable impact on its
ability to think creatively and to solve problems. What it means is helping the
group to refrain from:

• interrupting
• drawing attention to their personal agenda
• giving advice
• telling irrelevant anecdotes (in my department we . . .)

Admitting to mistakes and uncertainties. If you do not understand or are
puzzled, be prepared to say so. If you make a mistake, own up and apologize. If
you are not getting what you want from the event, say so early and let us
discuss it.

Say ‘I’ rather than ‘one’, ‘people’ or ‘we’. This encourages everyone to own
their opinions and to speak directly and personally. Model this practice your-
self and encourage participants to do the same and to monitor each other. The
exception here is that when the group arrives at the action phase, ‘we’ talk is
correct because it represents collective will.

Taking risks. Be prepared to go beyond the normal protocols of your
meetings.

Acknowledging feelings. It is all right to express feelings whether of anger,
grief, joy, exhilaration, pleasure, sadness, disappointment. Feelings are part of
the normal spectrum of human existence and acknowledging them is essential
to robust problem-solving as well as to learning.

Ice-breakers

You have to start the event somehow, and ice-breakers will help. This is because
when we come to an event, most of us still have at least half our minds else-
where. We may be preoccupied with work or personal issues, we may be
apprehensive about what will happen on the day itself, we may be wondering

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 71

if the whole thing is going to waste our time. Icebreakers help because they
give everyone (including you) the chance to become ‘fully present’. They also
help by obliging everyone to say something right at the start. The more the
chance to speak is delayed, the less likely it is that the more reticent or less
confident people will join in. Ice-breakers get people over the Inclusion phase
of group development as speedily as possible.

These are the factors that will influence the type of ice-breaker you use:

• the subject and style of the event
• the participants and your best hunch about what they will like or

dislike

• how well people already know each other
• the time available

Ideally, the best ice-breaker will be in keeping with the rest of the event. So if
your event is to have a high level of personal disclosure, then you might want
to risk having an intensely personal ice-breaker. If the event has a sober busi-
ness focus then something more sober will be required. Inexperienced facilita-
tors often overlook the simple mathematics of the size of the group and the
time available. So if you have a group of 16 people and your ice-breaker
requires each person to speak for two minutes, that will take 32 minutes of
your timetable. This might be too much in a short event or it might be an
excellent investment in a longer one.

Sample ice-breakers

Here are some ice-breakers that have worked for me:

• Ask people to write down on a scrap of paper the things that may
distract them from the event. You then ask them to crumple it up and
put it in a cardboard box that will be taped closed all day, promising
them that they can retrieve their paper later if they wish.
Comments: confronts the distraction issue head on. The physical pro-
cess of writing it down and discarding it models the mental process.
No one ever wants to retrieve their paper later: why would they? A
variant is to ask people to state the same thing verbally.

• Ask people to put themselves into birth-order groups – only children,
elder of two, eldest of three, youngest of three or more; younger of
two, middle of three or more. The task is: what has your birth order
contributed to (your management style/your attitude to being in a
team . . .) or whatever the subject of your event is?

72 FACILITATING GROUPS

Comment: fun and surprisingly revealing. Gets people mixing in
unexpected ways. Not so suitable for events where the focus is
on business issues.

• Ask people to seat themselves in the order in which they joined
the team/organization. The task: describe in no more than one
minute what you noticed about this team/organization in your first
week.
Comment: an excellent ice-breaker for a day where one of the themes
is change and how to manage it. People enjoy this one and it often
says a lot about the organization. May take too long if you have a large
group.

• Ask people to identify:
• three things I want from this day are . . .
• three things I can offer on this day . . .
• my purpose in being here is . . .
Comment: a reliable golden oldie. Not exciting, but works as a way of
identifying what people want.

• Ask people to introduce themselves, name, job and what they would
like to be doing if they were not doing their current job.
Comment: the twist of asking for the third piece of information adds
humour. People’s fantasy jobs invariably fall into the following cat-
egories: rural escape (breeding puppies, living on an island); running
a B&B or pub; travel; creative success (writing plays, novels, having an
acting career) or splendid idleness.

• Ask people to find two other people in the room with whom they
share a common interest. Encourage them to be creative and to go
past the ‘middle-aged man with two children’ kind of response.
Comment: only really suitable for groups of strangers; a good way of
getting people to mingle at an early stage and produces a lot of good-
humoured exchange. Like-minded people seem to have a nose for
each other and this is a good way for them to meet sooner rather than
later in the day. Negative: can seem contrived and mechanical.

• Tell people they will be swapping wallets. Give them the chance to
remove anything that might be too personal or revealing. The task is
to tell the rest of the group what they believe their partner’s wallet
says about them.
Comment: highly revealing. If you doubt this, take a look now at your

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 73

own. A good way of conveying that you are working with the whole
person and encouraging frankness. Negative: may be too personal for
some people.

• Names ice-breaker: ask people to describe how they came by their
name, either first or second name – or both. For example, how their
parents came to choose their name, why they have changed, short-
ened, lengthened their first or second names.
Comment: another highly revealing exercise that is essentially about
identity and how we see ourselves. A surprising number of people
have changed the names they were born with for a fascinating variety
of reasons.

Analysing

This is typically part of the early stages of an event. There are many excellent
tools for analysis to help people grapple with what may seem like a plethora of
conflicting ideas. These approaches are among the classics.

SWOT analysis

Do not be afraid to use this classic just because many people will have done it
before (see Figure 3.3). SWOT stands for: ‘Strengths’ – what are we good at?
Weaknesses – what are we bad at? Opportunities – what is around the corner
that could be a useful way for us to go? Threats – what could threaten our
success? It can be applied to the total situation a group is in, or perhaps more
usefully, some particular aspect of it; for instance, marketing, branding, com-
petitive positioning and so on.

SWOT analysis can be done as a whole group or in small groups; for
instance, with each of four groups looking at one quadrant.

PEST analysis

This is another reliable framework for analysing what the environmental pres-
sures on a team or organization (see Figure 3.4). It is particularly valuable for
groups that have become too inward-looking and are in danger of forgetting
that the most intense pressure for change comes from outside not from inside
an organization.

Stage 1 Ask the group to look at political pressures for change in their indus-
try/organization as well as economic pressures, social and technological
changes.

74 FACILITATING GROUPS

What’s going on in your world
Politically – locally and nationally?

What are the regulators doing or likely to do? Where are the pressure
groups? Who or what are the most significant driving forces here?

Economically – what is the state of the local, national and inter-
national economy? Where are the driving forces here?

Environmentally – what is the global, national and local scene?
Socially – what is going on; for example, with the birth rate, eth-

nic and cultural composition, and age profile of the local/national
population? What are consumers and users likely to want – what are
they pressing for now?

Technologically – what are the technological drivers; for example,
in pharmaceuticals, media, communications, transport, the Internet
and other changes in computer technology?

Figure 3.3 Strengths and weaknesses analysis

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 75

What are driving forces inside the organization – what are the elem-
ents that are changing? What is likely to stay the same?

Stage 2 Ask the group to think about the implications of each of these for
their work. Again, this can be done as a whole or small group activity.

Stakeholder analysis

This is an effective exercise for groups planning for change and who may have
lost touch with meeting the needs of the people who one way or another pay
for their existence. This is often true of professional groups used to self-
regulation such as doctors or lawyers, or of providers of internal services to
organizations.

Stage 1 Ask the group to identify its stakeholders – the people who can influ-
ence whether or not they get resources such as money, buildings, time, or

Figure 3.4 Another popular analytical tool

76 FACILITATING GROUPS

decide whether or not the group may continue to exist. Normally, the stake-
holders will be regulators, staff, clients/customers/users/senior management/
commissioners; media.

Stage 2 Now break the group into smaller groups and ask each to ‘be’ one
stakeholder and imagine that it is two years from now. Your client group has
been very successful. What has it done specifically that has pleased that
stakeholder?

Stage 3 Bring the whole group together to hear a presentation from each
stakeholder group.

Stage 4 Facilitate a discussion about what essential objectives come out of this
for the group. NB it would be normal for there to be many conflicting object-
ives, but reconciling that kind of ambiguity is what organizational life is about.

Scenario planning

In thinking about strategic planning, most organizations assume a ‘default
scenario’ or a ‘rear-view window’ model that assumes the future is a continu-
ation of the present and therefore predictable by studying current trends. Yet
the default scenario is the one least likely to happen because sudden crises
occur, combine with other unpredictable events thus producing shocks, sur-
prises and discontinuities. Our responses are then dominated by panic and
short-term thinking creating the quick fixes that merely generate further
problems.

Scenarios are a way of organizing knowledge through stories. Scenario
planning helps by looking ahead at uncertainties and untested assumptions.
For instance, in the past people have confidently made these assumptions, all
of which have proved wrong:

• The Cold War can never end.
• The US economy will always be strong.
• Home computers will never catch on.
• The Labour Party will never be electable.
• You cannot stop people smoking in pubs.
• Lack of democracy in China will always prevent its economy growing.

Scenarios are stories, not predictions. No one can predict the future. Unlike
traditional business forecasting, they do not extrapolate trends from the pres-
ent. They present plausible images of the future. The purpose of scenario plan-
ning is to help groups think hard about how prepared they are to face the

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 77

shocks and crises of the future: how ready are we now if this future were
actually to happen?

The stages are:

1 Identify the big questions: what are the real strategic challenges that
face your team/organization? What are the big issues that will help
decide your longer-term future?

2 Identify the driving forces using a PEST analysis.
3 What are the certainties?

In every scenario there are some certainties. For instance, you can
predict the number of young adults there will be in any given
population in 20 years’ time by looking at the birth rate now; most
governments in Western countries have a constitutionally limited
lifespan.

Look here at:

• slow-changing trends – for instance, in infrastructure, populations,
development of resources

• constraints – for example, regulator activity, legal obligations,
media pressure

• continuations – major projects that are highly likely to continue;
obligations that must be fulfilled, for example, IT commitments

• clashes – for instance, the growth of numbers of older people at
the same time as there is a government refusing to provide extra
benefits from raising taxes; continuing migration involving
young families against the needs of the indigenous population

4 Identify the critical uncertainties.

This involves looking at cherished assumptions and also at worst
nightmares. What could cause changes in any of the driving forces?
For instance, could public opinion suddenly or slowly change on
some topic of critical importance to your enterprise?

Some examples are:

• Could there be a further economic collapse of some kind? What
might trigger that?

• Could there be an immediate environmental disaster?
• Could there be a serious pandemic?
• Could climate change suddenly accelerate?

78 FACILITATING GROUPS

• Could terrorist activity affect

what we do?

• Could there be a significant shift in government policy affecting

what we do?

5 Writing the scenarios.

Now develop three scenarios, a default scenario, an optimistic one
and a pessimistic one using the factors you have identified. Write
them as stories set five years ahead. Weave the elements together as a
narrative and combining many of the uncertainties; for instance, an
acceleration in climate change at the same time as immigration
numbers increase dramatically along with a severe and prolonged
recession. What would happen? Scenarios may be anything from 400
to 2,000 words. They are usually brief enough to be able to take in at a
glance.

Finally, give your scenarios vivid and memorable names.
6 Discussing the scenarios: usually done in three separate groups who

then present to each other. In looking at the scenarios:

• What light does it shed on the strategic issue you started with?
• How prepared are you to face this future now?
• Where would your strengths be?
• Where are your critical weaknesses?
• What should you do now to prepare for this possible future?
• How does this compare with what you are actually doing?

Appreciative Inquiry

Most problem-solving starts with what is going wrong – the word problem is
itself the give-away. Paralleling the interest in positive psychology for indi-
viduals, there has also been a productive method of working on change by
looking at what is going well in a group or organization rather than on what is
going badly. The label ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ (AI) was coined in the 1980s by
David Cooperrider of Case Western Reserve University (Cooperrider and
Whitney, 2005). AI has become a ‘movement’ with enthusiastic disciples, a
body of literature and its own training courses; in effect, a whole philosophy of
change rather than just a ‘technique’. This is just a brief summary of the over-
all approach and is not intended to be a substitute for in-depth reading and
training.

The assumptions are:

• In any situation, however dire, there will be something that is going
well.

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 79

• When this is analysed, this will have lessons for the future.
• Focusing on the positive creates energy for change.
• AI assumes that the group has its own answers – it does not need

consultants to tell it what to do.

Enthusiasts for AI usually suggest that you approach it using the ‘5 D’s’:

1 Defining
The problem will be defined in a positive way – the language is important. So
rather than saying ‘We need to address the culture of blaming and avoiding
responsibility in this team’, you would define a positive outcome such as ‘Cre-
ate a culture of reward and responsibility in this team’.

2 Discovery
What is working well? Where are the success stories? What is motivating
people? What stories can you tell about these successes? What conditions are
creating this success? What can we learn from them?

3 Dream
‘Dreaming’ is about envisaging the future, based on the analysis that has come
from the ‘discovery’ phase. How would we ideally like things to be? How
might it look if we could apply all the conditions of the positive lessons to
whatever the larger problems are?

4 Design
This is the phase of working out the practicalities. To make the ‘dream’ real,
what systems, processes, people, tools and skills do we need?

5 Deliver
The action-planning and implementation phase.

The following example is from an organization development consultant:

I was brought in to work with a team of 20 people working on a multi-
national project in an Asian country. The project was floundering.
Interviewing everyone in the team revealed that no one really
believed the project had much chance of success. There was a high
degree of misery and a long history of difficult relationships between
local and European staff all blamed on cultural, religious and lan-
guage problems. However, applying the AI approach worked a kind of
miracle that I could hardly believe. When I asked what in all this
doubt and failure was actually working well, there was indeed one
aspect of the project that was going brilliantly. When we asked this

80 FACILITATING GROUPS

little group, all working in an outpost office, to tell their stories it was
clear that they had engaged a totally different approach from every-
one else, working in an essentially flat hierarchy, had talked through
the cultural difficulties candidly and had taken a creative slant on the
actual project work. We spent a morning just teasing out what these
ingredients were. It was the lever to solving the much larger-scale
problems of the project as a whole.

Six thinking hats

This idea comes from the work of Edward de Bono (1989). His thesis is that we
in the Western world have become undifferentiated and undisciplined in our
thinking. He suggests that discussions often disintegrate because we confuse
facts with emotion and speculation with facts. We may also find it difficult to
disentangle gloom about what might go wrong with creative ideas about how
to solve problems. The name of the technique comes from the metaphor of
‘putting on your thinking hat’. De Bono suggests six. They offer a creative
framework for looking all around an issue:

1 White hat thinking: what are the objective and verifiable facts? What
data is missing? What might we have been assuming to be fact but
is not?

2 Red hat thinking: what’s the emotion around this issue? What is our
gut response? What are the negative and positive feelings it creates?

3 Yellow hat thinking: what is the most optimistic way of looking at it?
What might be the best possible outcome?

4 Black hat thinking: what could go wrong? What are the risks? What is
the worst that could happen? Where are the weak spots?

5 Green hat thinking: what are the most creative possibilities here? What
madcap ideas might there be around it?

6 Blue hat thinking: thinking about thinking. How can we take a meas-
ured and judicious view of the thinking that all the other hats has
generated?

This is a flexible, enjoyable technique. At one point in our firm we did actually
have sets of six baseball caps in the different colours for use at events. Ways of
using the thinking hats approach include:

• Placing labels for the different ‘hats’ on six separate tables, dividing
the group into pairs or trios and rotating them around the tables.
Instruction: think about whatever the issue or problem is while ‘wear-
ing’ the appropriate hat; write your conclusions on a flip chart.

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 81

• Talking through the problem as a whole group, visiting each ‘hat’.
• Dividing the group into six small groups and asking each group to

‘wear’ one of the hats and then report back to the whole group.

Here is a manager-owner running a city-centre business in the hospitality
sector talking about the benefits of the thinking hats approach:

My business was facing a recession-created crisis. The hotel was doing
OK but the restaurant was suffering. There was a general feeling of
despair and a lot of unhelpful rumour. We spent the whole morning
using the thinking hats. Using the white hat we identified growth in
the lunchtime trade but a bigger decline than we had realised in the
evenings. We had also tracked trends in room occupancy, showing
that weekends were increasingly being undersold. The red hat yielded
a lot of fear about possible job losses and a tendency to blame the
directors. Black hat thinking saw us imagining further decline or even
bankruptcy and also suffering because part of the hotel badly needed
refurbishment and there was no way we could afford that. The most
interesting hats were yellow and green, especially green where we
came up with some amazing ideas. The upshot was that we decided to
promote weekend breaks, make a modest investment in gourmet
evenings through an informal dining club and also to dramatically
expand our lunchtime trade through a ‘street food’ stall, – this one a
high volume, low cost operation. This has been very successful. The
positive publicity it generated raised morale and the whole thing was
huge fun to do.

Five whys

This analytical tool works for problems that are not overcomplex. You start
with the presenting problem and work backwards, asking a further ‘why?’ each
time. Here is an example, used by a group of doctors:

• Why are we getting too few patients reporting for cervical smear tests after
we contact them? Because they dislike the process.

• Why do they dislike the process? Because it is uncomfortable and
embarrassing.

• Why do they feel it is uncomfortable and embarrassing? Because it is actu-
ally uncomfortable and because they can’t guarantee seeing a woman
doctor.

• Why can’t they guarantee seeing a woman doctor? Because our appoint-
ment process is too rigid.

82 FACILITATING GROUPS

• Why is it too rigid? Because we don’t make it clear in our letters that
patients can request this and because we haven’t briefed our
receptionists.

This group of doctors actually answered the first question with a number of
other suggestions, including: ‘Don’t feel they are at risk’, ‘Don’t like the word
cancer’, and so on. They tracked back each of these suggestions using the same
technique. The result was a rapid level of agreement about a new range of tactics
that significantly increased the numbers of patients attending for the tests.

The Myers–Briggs approach to problem-solving

This is a reliable protocol based on the thinking behind the Myers–Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI) that sorts people into 16 personality types each with its
different strengths and blind spots. The MBTI suggests that all of us have pre-
ferred ‘mental functions’ that are pairs of opposites. To take in information,
you can be either ‘Sensing’, liking the practical, facts, detail and data of the
here and now or Intuitive, liking what is intangible, possible, unique and
focused on the future. To come to conclusions, you will have a preference
either for ‘Thinking’, that is being objective, cool and rational or ‘Feeling’,
where the emphasis is on relationships and human values. You do not need to
be a trained MBTI practitioner yourself, or to have introduced the instrument
to the group, to find it helpful.1 The MBTI suggests that most of us can overuse
our preferred style and underuse its opposite. This can lead to lopsided
problem-solving. In most groups you will have a mixture of all four prefer-
ences. This exercise ensures that a more rounded approach to problem-solving
is taken. The preferences are presented as a zigzag and suggests that in solving
any problem you will need to ask:

• What are the facts? What are the data? This is the Myers–Briggs
Sensing dimension – the realm of what you can see, hear, touch, taste
and smell.

• What are the possibilities? If we had no restraints, what would be
possible? This is the Myers–Briggs Intuitive dimension: what is
intangible, around the corner, creative, in the future; what could
happen?

• What are the logical implications of any choices we might make? This
is the ‘Thinking’ dimension: the rational, analytical search for object-
ive truth.

• What is the likely impact on people of any of our choices? This is the
‘Feeling’ dimension and concerns personal values and the human
factors.

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 83

Improving relationships

Many events that need a facilitator are about getting the relationships on a
more healthy footing. Again, there are hundreds of approaches here. All of
them come down to finding ways for people to listen to each other. Here are
just a few.

Perceptions exercise

This is a powerful activity and can provoke strong feelings; for instance, dis-
may, defensiveness, relief – the spectrum is wide. It works best where there is
known difficulty between groups and also a willingness to begin the process of
repair. The activity set out here is enough for a whole day’s work. It cannot be
rushed.

Divide the group into its natural constituent parts; for instance, PAs,
senior managers; professionals, administrators; customers, suppliers.

Stage 1 Each group has the same task, to discuss:

• What do we think the other group (or groups) think about us?
• How do we see them?
• What would we ideally like them to think about us?
• What would we need to change in order to be seen by them in the way

we would like?

• What would they need to do to improve the relationship between us?

Stage 2 Each group presents its results to the other groups. The other groups
can ask questions for clarification – no more at this stage.

Stage 3 Each group resumes a discussion to discuss the other groups’ percep-
tions of them. This may be combined with:

Figure 3.5 Using the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator for problem-solving

84 FACILITATING GROUPS

Stage 4 Each group decides what it can do at a practical level to meet what the
other group or groups need.

Stage 5 Whole group agrees on action.

Prouds and sorries

This is a variant on the perceptions exercise. It can be done in a much shorter
time.

Divide the group into constituent parts, as before. Give each group a sin-
gle piece of flip chart paper. The task is to identify what they are most proud of
as a group and what they are most sorry about; for example, where there have
been collective failures or difficulties.

Now ask the group to treat each flip chart like a gallery and to pass slowly
around the room reading them.

The final stage is to discuss the implications for each group in turn and
then for the whole group.

Figure 3.6

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 85

Feedback exercise

This variant is always done one to one. It works well when the group has been
working together for some time but there are many intensely felt personal
difficulties. As a facilitator you should emphasize that people make their own
choices about how much risk to take in the level of feedback they give to each
other. It is also helpful to precede this activity by some structured guidance on
how to give and receive feedback.

Explain that everyone in the group is going to give feedback one to one
to everyone else in the group.

The time available is strictly limited to four minutes per pair; two minutes
each. This is in order to encourage people to get to the point quickly. Apply
this time limit strictly.

The format is:

• What I particularly appreciate about you is . . .
• What you might consider doing differently is . . .
• Things would be better between us if . . .

‘Fishbowls’

Variants on these activities are also possible by using the fishbowl technique.
What happens here is that one group sits in an inner circle and discusses a
crucial topic, usually involving their perceptions of the other group. In the
outer circle, the role is to listen carefully. As facilitator you will facilitate
the inner group’s discussion. The whole group then re-forms and the people
who were in the outer circle get the chance to ask questions for clarification.
The groups now swap over, with those who were in the outer circle taking the
inner seats. The same process happens again.

In the discussion that follows, your role is to facilitate the whole group’s
understanding of the general themes that have emerged – usually that the
views held by each group of the other have a large element of genuine mis-
understanding and fantasy. The discussion usually also reveals that there are
many simple, practical things that can be done if there is real willingness to
change on both sides.

Drawing and other non-verbal techniques

• Give group members a range of art materials that might include pens
and paints. You might also consider scissors, paste and magazines to
cut up and make into a collage. Reassure them that no artistic ability
is required. The brief may be tasks such as to create:

86 FACILITATING GROUPS

• a picture that represents both the inner and outer ‘you’
• a heraldic ‘shield’ representing your life and values
• something that shows how you lead your life now and how you

would prefer to lead it

• an image that represents how you see yourself in relation to the
rest of the team, or how you see the whole team

Example (from a colleague):

I gave everyone a plain brown paper bag of the type used in
sandwich bars. There was a pile of glossy mags, some scissors and
paste for everyone. Each person decorated the outside of the bag
to represent the person they thought the world saw, then a piece
of folded paper to go inside, also decorated, this time to represent
the more private person. They took it in turns to present this to
the group. It was interesting and very moving to listen to what
people said. That team has never forgotten the exercise – it cre-
ated higher levels of honesty and trust than they had ever
achieved before.

• ‘Statues’
This exercise is sometimes called a group sculpt. Each person in turn
silently arranges themselves and other people into a living tableau
that represents how they see the group; for instance, how close or
distant they feel they are from others in the group. Then, with facilita-
tor encouragement, they rearrange the group as they would like it to
be, followed by a whole-group discussion.

The well-functioning team

This is an effective activity for an intact team, or a group that needs to work
together during the life of a project.

Stage 1 Give the group a set or sets of postcards on which you have written
the characteristics of an effective team, one characteristic per card. Aim for
between 20 and 30. These could be items such as: effective leadership, open-
ness; effective communication when together; effective communication when
apart; honesty; clarity of purpose; friendliness; conflict dealt with effectively;
high standards of work; honest, frequent feedback; performance problems
dealt with; good communication with other teams; autonomy; effective dele-
gation; praise for work well done; stretching goals; clarity about roles; pride in
the team; celebrating success – you can add any of your own personal beliefs
about what will make a team work. Now ask the group to choose what they
believe to be the most important 10 characteristics.

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 87

Stage 2 Write the chosen characteristics on the flip chart with a 1–5 rating
scale and ask the team to rate itself for current effectiveness. Give everyone 10
self-adhesive dots. This gives an immediate visual response – instant
democracy.

Stage 3 Facilitate a discussion about how the group can move from where it
currently is to where it wants to be.

If you are licensed to use the MBTI, FIRO-B or other psychometric instru-
ments, these are also wonderfully safe ways for the group to look at its relation-
ships. The training for these instruments normally includes advice on how to
use them with groups.

Figure 3.7

88 FACILITATING GROUPS

Creativity exercises

Brainstorming

This works well when the group has got stuck, new ideas are needed or there is
low energy in the room.

Stage 1 The generation of ideas according to the rules below.

Essentially, you prohibit evaluation so what happens is that new, funny,
inspirational, off-the-wall ideas are created, one building on the other. The
process should be fast and furious. If it is a small group, get people to stand up
and cluster around the flip chart. Explain that:

• everything anyone says is written down on a flip chart with no edit-
ing whatsoever

• everyone contributes their ideas
• any idea however preposterous is allowed, indeed encouraged
• no evaluation whatsoever is permitted at this phase – this includes

funny looks, raised eyebrows and gestures as well as verbal responses

Stage 2 Highlight the most interesting ideas using a different coloured pen.
Stage 3 Agree the criteria for evaluating the ideas.
Stage 4 Evaluate the ideas against the criteria; for example, by starring some

of them.
Stage 5 Agree how to take the ideas forward.

‘Strawman’ discussions

A ‘Strawman’ is an obviously wrongheaded, ill-thought-through and
incomplete idea. Its aim is to stimulate creative discussion. This is how it
works. The group agrees that it is facing a problem. Common ones would be:
declining revenue; an eroded customer base; narrowed profit margins; restless
or unhappy staff; and predatory competitors. Groups are formed where they
briefly invent ‘solutions’ to the problem. These might be ideas such as:

• give away a substantial number of our services
• enter an entirely new market
• create a virtual office and sell the real one
• turn all staff into freelance associates
• reduce prices by 50 per cent

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 89

• appoint staff to the Board; negotiate a management buy-out
• make a significant capital investment of some kind

Each idea has a sponsor who makes as good a job as possible of presenting it.
The idea is then critiqued with the aim of reducing the strawman to nothing.
In doing so, a surprising number of genuinely new and useful ideas will
normally emerge because the discussion enables rock-bottom assumptions to
be identified and challenged.

Games

A ‘game’ is a puzzle of some kind that has to be solved by the whole group.
Games are a way of increasing the energy in the group – the activists love them
– but mostly they offer a metaphor for individual and group behaviour. A game
may reveal with startling ruthlessness and brevity how a team or group usually
behaves, especially when it is trying to solve problems. Most games work by
depriving the group of some essential piece of information and by providing
an ambiguous and difficult problem to be solved within a time limit. Games
work because they offer a low-risk way for the group to see itself – a kind of
mirror for how they are. The insights are usually powerful. For instance, I
introduced a team I was working with to the game Blindfold Square. The game
is simple. All it needs is a blindfold for each person in the group and a long
length of rope or clothes line. The group puts on the blindfolds and you tell
them that their task is to make a perfect square, held at waist height, out of the
rope. The combination of the silliness of the task and the deprivation of all the
usual visual clues is what make this a revealing game. In this case, the game
showed the following to the group:

• It over-relied on its boss – no one else in the group was able to take a
lead.

• Some people stood on the sidelines far too soon and became spectators.
• The most junior people in the team were not listened to, even though

they were the ones who came up with the best ideas about solutions.

• The team was sloppy about its quality standards.

This was what happened in the game, but it was also, they all agreed, exactly
what happened in real life too.

Another well-known game is Red-Black, also known by a number of other
colour names such as Blue-Red. The game is intended to explore issues of
values, trust and negotiating style.

The group divides into two and goes to separate rooms. There are 10
rounds.

90 FACILITATING GROUPS

The facilitator tells the groups that the only purpose is to end the game
with a positive score and explains the scoring system (see Table 3.3).

The facilitator travels between rooms, telling each group how the other
has voted and scored and keeping a tally of scores. There is an opportunity to
negotiate new rules between rounds 6 and 7 and rounds 9 and 10, when each
team nominates and briefs a person to represent them in a discussion run by
the facilitator. Although it is obvious that everyone can win simply by ‘play-
ing’ black every time, the temptation to dish the other group is usually over-
whelming. In the debrief that follows, some helpful questions are:

• How do people feel now this minute?
• What happened to principle?
• How were minority views handled in the groups?
• How far does this represent the way influencing and negotiating are

normally handled both by individuals and by the whole group?

• How realistic is it to suppose that there can always be a win-win
outcome?

Making games safe and effective
Games are emotionally arousing: do not introduce them if you feel you might
be unable to handle what could follow. Participation should be voluntary – if
people do not want to take part, let them be observers or absent themselves
altogether if they prefer. Always explain the rationale behind introducing a
game and devote ample time to the debrief where you ask about links from the
game to the everyday life of the group. Take care with the physical and psycho-
logical aspects of safety; for instance, if someone tells you that they would feel
claustrophobic wearing a blindfold, just accept it. If you are working out of
doors, assess the site for safety risks.

There are hundreds of possible games, all with their unique advantages

If the teams play They will earn these scores

Team A Team B Team A Team B

Black Black +3 +3

Red Black +5 −5

Black Red −5 +5

Red Red −5 −5

Table 3.3 The scoring system for the Red–Black game

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 91

and disadvantages. Search the Internet for sites devoted to this topic, or even
better, consult other facilitators about games they have found effective.

Decision-making techniques

The normal rhythm of a facilitated event is to start with the warm-up, then
proceed to analyse whatever the problems are, then to use creativity tech-
niques to expand people’s minds and loosen their attachments to old mindsets
and then to narrow down the possibilities through decision-making.

Innumerable problems can arise at this point in the event, such as:

• The group believes it has the power to make a decision when in fact it
does not; it is merely being asked to recommend.

• There is no discussion about what processes to use to make the
decision.

• The discussion becomes polarized and tetchy.
• Groupthink (see Chapter 2, p. 38) takes over and no one voices their

disagreement even if in fact everyone disagrees, so everyone agrees to
what no one privately believes is the right thing to do.

• Inappropriate decision-making techniques are employed.

Voting

The oldest decision-making technique in the world is the vote. It is quick and it
is apparently decisive. Why, then, is this such a bad idea for a facilitated event?
Voting is divisive. The defeated group may feel bitter; the vote does nothing to
help them live with the option that has won more votes so it may perpetuate
the very divisions it has been designed to prevent. Voting encourages black
and white thinking and also a premature close to discussing options, whereas
shades of grey may be more useful and lead to more productive thinking.
Finally, depending on what type of voting method is used, it can create pres-
sure to conform; for instance, if a show of hands is used. If your group insists
on voting, you can soften the worst aspects by trying any of these tactics:

• asking the opponents of each option to summarize the view with
which they disagree. This forces attention on the positives in the
opposite view

• setting up a pair exercise where you do the same as above
• introducing a matched time period for each side to put their views
• changing the usual 50 : 50 ratio to something different; for example,

60 : 40

• suggesting a recess while people consider their views

92 FACILITATING GROUPS

Discussing the process of decision-making

Groups can quickly get into emotionally heated discussions about a decision.
One of the main reasons this happens is that they have neglected to discuss
how a decision is going to be made. Instead, the focus is on what the decision
should be. People endorse one view and then back themselves into the corner
of defending it at all costs. You can pre-empt this by insisting on a discussion of
how the decision might be made, offering a number of alternatives, such as
those that follow here.

Multi-voting
This is a technique with many applications. Essentially, you are asking people
to spread their preferences among several options. It is more democratic than
straight voting and enables people to feel that at least their preferences have
had an airing.

Creating criteria
This simple tool is significantly underused. Where you can see that a group is
likely to have trouble with a decision, ask them to agree criteria for making the
decision first. Ask:

What would the features of a good decision be?

The answers may emerge readily, or they may again be the focus of disagree-
ment. In this case, consider using a decision grid that allows weighting of the
criteria. Table 3.4 shows one such list generated by an architectural practice
that was considering what kind of building they needed for new offices. The
discussion had generated a high level of emotion and it was clear that there
were widely differing assumptions.

The facilitator then handed everyone four sticky dots, enforcing the rule
that you could only vote once (i.e. one dot) for your favourites. This clearly
revealed that there were four important criteria on which everyone could
agree: cost, central location, an aesthetically pleasing building and a good fit
with the company’s brand. Happy smiles all round.

The same technique can be used in a forced-choice protocol to decide
between confusing or divisive options against the criteria. In this case the
question is:

How well in your view do these options stack up against the criteria?

Give everyone a limited range of votes/dots (four in the example here shown

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 93

in Table 3.5) again reinforcing the only-one-vote-per-item rule to stop people
using all their votes for a favourite option.

Criterion Votes – one dot each per item!

Cost-neutral

Five-year lease, renewable

Centrally located: easy access to at least three
tube lines

Disabled access

Purpose-built block

Natural light everywhere

South facing

Eco-friendly/obviously a ‘green’ building

Aesthetically pleasing

Doesn’t look lavish/over the top

Good fit with our brand: excellent ‘calling card’
for us

Enough space for visiting associates

Potential for remodelling: putting our unique
stamp on it

Space for bike park outside

Table 3.4

Options Cost Central location Aesthetics Fit with brand

Keppoch St

Exmouth House

St John’s Building

Table 3.5

94 FACILITATING GROUPS

To minimize any problems with using multi-voting, ask group members to
vote by filing individually behind the reversed flip chart so that they have
privacy, or use Post-it notes as ballot sheets that are handed to you. This pre-
vents people being over-influenced by others and preserves anonymity. Some-
times multi-voting does not yield a clear result, in which case you might want
to narrow the options and repeat the process or else give differing weightings
to the dots/votes.

The line-out

Where a group is divided on a decision, there will be a temptation to force
closure by suggesting a vote or some other exercise that brings the discussion
to what could be a premature end. If you suspect that this might happen, you
could try the following:

• Ask one person in the group to pose the question as clearly as possible,
setting out the two choices.

• Get the group to stand up. Tell them that there is now an imaginary
line from one side of the room to the other. Each end of the line
represents one of the two possible choices.

• Ask people to place themselves along the line according to where
their own opinion falls. When they have done this, ask each person to
say briefly why they have placed themselves where they have.

This exercise usually reveals a wide range of opinions with many people clus-
tered in the middle and will normally bring a depth that could have been
lacking in the previous discussion.

Force field analysis

Force field analysis is many decades old but none the worse for that. It was
developed by Kurt Lewin (p. 28) the early exponent of organizational devel-
opment and action research in psychology. The idea is that in any proposed
change, the human ability to drag our feet will be visible and should be antici-
pated. There will be forces pushing for change and forces pushing against – the
forces of resistance. The chances of any proposed change taking root are
increased when the forces in favour are more powerful than the forces of
resistance (see Figure 3.8).

How to use the tool
This structure is helpful:

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 95

1 Describe the present state.
2 Describe the ideal solution.
3 What will happen if you do nothing?
4 List all the forces driving change towards the ideal outcome.
5 List all the forces of resistance.
6 How valid are each of these forces? Which are the most important?
7 Give a score to each of the forces using a numerical scale; for example,

1 = extremely weak and 4 = extremely strong.
8 Write them in on the chart, representing each according to its

strength.

Once you have got the group to identify the items on each side, the discussion
is then:

What needs to happen to increase the forces for change?

What needs to happen to reduce the forces of resistance?

How might we inadvertently create new resistance if we strengthen the
change forces?

If we did, how would we counter them?

Assessing buy-in

Sometimes it can happen that there is a false consensus. People withhold their
objections, only naming them at the very last moment, or worse, when the

Figure 3.8 Force-field analysis

96 FACILITATING GROUPS

event is over. This can matter hugely when the stakes are high and the appar-
ently consensual decision is undermined later by rumour and backbiting.

To prevent this happening, test the buy-in to important decisions. Ask the
group to vote anonymously on how far they personally endorse an important
decision, giving their views a percentage (see Figure 3.9). Represent the result
so that everyone can see it.

This may reveal that no one gives above 70 per cent to the decision, in
which case it may be the wrong decision and the group might want to
reconsider its verdict. There may be a wide range of votes – also a sign of
trouble. Alternatively, there may be just one or two people who have given low
percentages. If so, invite them to identify themselves. When they do, ask them
what would need to happen to raise their levels of personal commitment. This
will usually result in a productive discussion, often one that changes some
relatively small part of the total package but greatly increases the chances of
the decision having a positive impact because everyone endorses it.

The action phase
Remember that any facilitated event is about change. To have any impact on
the issues identified by the group, the event will need to end with an action
plan. There are a number of familiar traps here:

• The action phase is rushed – people are already beginning to shuffle
with their belongings ready to leave.

• The conscientious people volunteer for most of the tasks; everyone
else is strangely silent.

• Leaders of teams get landed with much of it because they care most.
• There are far too many items on the list.
• The tasks are vague, enormous or both.
• There are no penalties for lack of follow-through.

Preparation is once more the main way to forestall any of these pitfalls. As part
of your preparation, ask straightforwardly what the group’s track record is of
following through. Where there have clearly been problems, investigate
the root causes. This is what one of my colleagues found when he asked these
questions:

In doing my pre-event interviews, I discovered that there was wide-
spread cynicism about whether anything would change, or indeed
whether it was possible for anything to change. The general view was
that they were suffering from ‘initiative overload’, that all previous
awaydays had ended with long ‘to-do’ lists, none of which had ever
actually been done. The whole team was in a state of inertia.

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 97

To get around these problems, take a few moments to remind people of
these traps. Ask the group for their own ideas on getting around them. Nor-
mally, people will suggest making a variety of sensible strategies. For instance,
restricting the list of actions to no more than some small number; spreading
the load between the group; devising a method of accountability; making the
actions specific and measurable; and suggesting short-, medium- and long-
term actions.

A familiar grid will normally help this process (see Figure 3.10). Your role
in the discussion is to challenge any tendency to overload individuals, to insist
on specifics and measurables, to raise the whole question of how progress will
be tracked and to ask the question, ‘What might sabotage these action plans?’
Then depending on the answer, ‘What needs to happen to ensure that there really
is follow-through?’

Ask who is going to type up and distribute the notes from the day. The
quicker these are sent out, the more likely it is that the action plan will actually
be implemented.

Large group interventions

The most familiar form of facilitated event is the small group that is planning
for some kind of organizational transformation in a traditionally top-down

Figure 3.9 Percentage buy-in to decisions

Figure 3.10 Action planning

98 FACILITATING GROUPS

process. Typically, this will be the executive team. But there is another whole
genre of events, usually known collectively as large-group interventions. Like so
much else in working with groups, the philosophy and practicalities origin-
ated with the Tavistock Institute (p. 29). In 1959 Eric Trist and Fred Emery,
two Tavistock consultants, ran a five-day conference in Bristol with the newly
created Armstrong Siddeley company. It was based on the principle that the
group itself would know what was best for its future if it worked on establish-
ing a vision of how it wanted to be and then worked on how to close the gap
between this desirable future and the present. The number in the group was
small. However, the thinking behind it, and the way that thinking was trans-
lated into a workable methodology, was the forerunner of all the types of large
group events from which we can choose today.

Devotees of large group interventions point to the many reasons that
conventional approaches to change do not work: for instance, how they per-
petuate the fantasy that leaders can control all the deciding and problem-
solving, or that change can and should be based on the cascade principle. This
is why conventional staff conferences will tend to have such a stiff, over-
produced feel where information is meticulously combed of anything that
could seem risky, taboo areas are carefully skirted and participation is kept to a
respectful minimum. The whole event reinforces the idea that there are
authority figures who know best and that change can be planned.

Large group interventions are based instead on ‘systems thinking’ – the
idea that ‘the system’ is broader than just the organization or the immediate
team: it will include clients and customers, competitors, regulators, partner
organizations and other social networks. Change is assumed to be messy and
complex with no easily discernible causes and effects. When you do not take
the system into account you may make lopsided and short-range decisions.
Large group interventions aim to tackle all these shortcomings by working
instead from these principles:

• Change works best when you involve all the stakeholders even if
there are areas of violent disagreement among them.

• Long-term change is more likely when the people who will have to
implement it are also involved in diagnosing what the problems actu-
ally are.

• Even if it is difficult, cooperation works better than domination.
• Going with the flow is better than wasting energy on the futile task of

trying to be in control at all times.

• It is more productive to create optimism by working on possibilities
and then working backwards to the present than to work ‘cold’ on
solving problems.

• People want to take responsibility for anything that affects them.

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 99

Involvement produces superior ideas and is more likely to produce
change that sticks.

At the event itself, the principles are also the opposite of the overgroomed,
tightly managed traditional conference. At a typical large group intervention
the assumptions are that all perceptions are valid and all participants equal.
Numbers of participants may be anything from 10 to 2,000. Open, frank dia-
logue is the core of the event. People come as volunteers not as representatives.
You do not need ice-breakers, presentations or games. It takes an enlightened
client to commission one of these events. Clients have to be prepared to
acknowledge a counter-intuitive truth that where they do not know ‘the
answer’, it is better to let it emerge from listening to others. Indeed, in my own
experience, selling the idea of this kind of event to a client who is understand-
ably freaked by the apparent risks is harder than anything you will need to do
on the day. These approaches have been widely used in communities where
there are large numbers of people who would be regarded as marginalized; for
instance, an aboriginal group in Australia working to improve access to educa-
tion by their own people. Equally, they have been successful in hard-edged
commercial environments such as Ikea where junior staff have generated
many commercially successful ideas.

Types of large group event

Many different types of large group event have emerged in the last 30 years, all
closely related to each other.

Future search
This normally involves 60+ people with the aim of replicating ‘the system’ and
then ‘bringing it into the room’ for the purpose of strategic planning. It was
developed by Marvin Weisbord (Weisbord, 2004; Weisbord and Janoff, 2000).
Usually, this is a two-day event with five phases:

1 reviewing the past as a giant timeline where personal, community
and organizational events are tracked and charted

2 mapping the present where people sit in their professional or interest
groups (typically eight people sitting at round tables) and examine
their relationships with the question/organization commissioning
the conference

3 creating the ideal scenario, often presented as a skit, this time working
in so-called max–mix groups

4 identifying the common ground and creating a shared vision
5 drafting plans to implement the changes that will make the vision real

100 FACILITATING GROUPS

Pluses: this is a highly structured framework inside which a great deal of
variation is possible. It is ideally suited to any project that needs major impetus
at its start; for instance, an organizational merger. Drawing on multiple per-
spectives and mixing people constantly from different parts of the system
means that barriers are dismantled and common ground is identified.

Minuses: the hard work is in the planning. It needs a dedicated project
group that can give it enormous amounts of time. As a facilitator, this is where
you will add value. As with all such large-scale events, logistics are complex; for
instance, group membership is constantly rotated during the day according to
a pre-agreed plan and this needs to be carefully considered in advance and
then clearly signposted on the day. Staff time and the time commitment of
those attending can also be a deterrent so it needs a zealous and influential in-
house sponsor; ideally, someone who has already seen the benefits as a partici-
pant elsewhere.

The Conference Model
The purpose of the Conference Model is to fast-track the redesign of an organ-
ization. Usually, the need for this will have been made apparent by some kind
of crisis. Like Future Search, it usually involves between 60 and 80 people for
each event, but unlike Future Search, there are four consecutive events, each
lasting two days:

1 The visioning conference: this resembles a future search event.
2 The customer/supplier conference where the focus is on how cus-

tomers and suppliers currently see the organization and how they
would like it to be in the future.

3 The technical conference where business processes are tracked with a
view to simplifying them and improving quality.

4 The organizational design conference that gathers feedback from the
other three events and decides on the new design of the organization.

There are many other variants of these events, including Real Time Strategic
Change and Simu-Real.

Open Space

This is my personal favourite. Compared to other large group techniques it
needs no elaborate planning. I find Open Space exhilarating – and terrifying.
Every time I run one I wonder if this will be the time the model doesn’t work –
but so far it always has. Open Space was invented by Harrison Owen (1997) in
the 1980s when it struck him that people constantly described the coffee
breaks and mealtimes as the most productive parts of any meeting. Why

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 101

not, then, turn the whole event into something informal that tackles all the
subjects that people really want to talk about? It is a method that is designed to
solve complex problems in the shortest possible time and can work with as few
as 10 people or as many as several hundred. It may last half a day or as long as
three days.

What happens in an Open Space
The organization has a perplexing problem, possibly one that is full of conflict
and which has defeated everyone. The problem is posed as a set of questions.
Typically, this would be: What is the future of X? (the issue). What do we need
to do to resolve it? An invitation is sent out to everyone who might care about
finding the answers, but attendance is voluntary and no one comes as a ‘repre-
sentative’. The group sits in an open circle or two concentric circles. The facili-
tator stands in the middle and introduces the ‘rules’. These are:

• Whoever comes is the right people.
• Whatever happens are the only things that could happen.
• The law of two feet means that if you are not getting what you want,

move on to somewhere else.

• Butterflies and bumblebees are fine: butterflies are people who stand
around looking beautiful and may attract others to come and join
them. Bumblebees go from group to group bringing ideas with them
as they go.

• When it’s over, it’s over.

The facilitator describes what will happen during the rest of the day, then
reminds people of the question/problem and invites anyone who has an idea
that they feel is related to finding the answer to the problem to come forward,
say their name, briefly name the topic and write it on a piece of paper. At first
only the most confident come forward but through encouragement, patience
and perhaps a little coaxing, eventually many dozens of possible topics are
identified. This process may take up to 40 minutes. There is a large blank
timetable running along one wall and ‘The Marketplace’ follows. This is
where the people who have nominated topics choose a room and stick their
piece of paper to the blank space on the timetable. Many topics will be similar
so some negotiation takes place at this point. People then take themselves to
the rooms and topics that interest them, roaming from room to room if they
wish. The groups facilitate themselves and produce a flip chart sheet of
recommendations. These in turn are attached to another wall. In a one-day
Open Space, about three-quarters of the way through the event, the whole
group will reconvene. As facilitator you and your client will have met at some
point and identified the main themes. You may then go through the whole

102 FACILITATING GROUPS

process again or it may be obvious which the action points are. Project teams
are then assembled around these themes – again on a volunteer basis – and
discuss next steps. The event ends with a ‘closing ceremony’ where anyone
who wishes to speak can walk into the reassembled circle to pick up the ‘talk-
ing stick’ (a microphone if it is a large group). All the flip charts are typed up
and swiftly distributed to everyone who attended, together with progress
reports from the action groups.

Advantages and disadvantages of Open Space
The beauty of the Open Space approach is that there is no place for cynicism or
acting out. There is a buzz of optimism and energy. If as a participant you have
a topic that you feel is vitally important, then you will have your chance to
raise it and if you do not take that chance then you have to live with the
consequences. You cannot moan that ‘no one ever pays attention to the real
issues’. Senior people in the organization can get some salutary shocks. In one
organization where I ran an Open Space, the executive team discovered that
far from being the heroes to their people that they had imagined, they were
widely held in disrespect – and they found out why, then what to do about it.
In another company, complacency about customer service was well and truly
banished as the most junior staff enthusiastically redesigned the delivery pro-
cess, resulting in a 100 per cent increase in profit the following year. One of the
most moving Open Space events I have ever facilitated was for a British organ-
ization operating in a country that had formerly been part of the Soviet bloc.
The question for the event was: What do we need to do to guarantee a successful
future for this operation? The event ran in four languages: English, Russian, the
language of the country and German. It involved every single person on the
staff from the most senior managers to the cooks and drivers. On the second
day, several staff approached me shyly to ask whether it was really true that
they could choose which groups they went to, and really true that they could
wander from group to group. As one of them said, ‘You’ve got to remember
that memories of the Soviet era die hard and democracy is still very young
here’. In two days this organization had created, or possibly recreated, com-
mitment to its overarching purpose, had sketched out a viable business plan,
had involved all staff in what it should contain, had planned improvements to
its services, had agreed training plans for everyone and had also enjoyed itself
hugely.

The disadvantages of Open Space are that it cannot work when senior
managers secretly believe they already have the answer to the question. When
you describe it to clients, it can sound flaky: ‘Hippy heaven’ as one of my
clients snorted in response to my first attempt at persuading her to undertake
it. They may feel uneasy about the apparent lack of structure, or tell you than
‘no one’ will come forward with ideas (I have never known this happen). In

PREPARATION AND DESIGN 103

fact, there is an underpinning structure, but it is a process and not a content
structure and this can unnerve people who like to feel in control. As a facilita-
tor you have to be able to hold on to your courage at the point where the
‘Marketplace’ starts. It can seem chaotic and noisy, but trust the process: it
works, and miraculously people quickly go off to their chosen sessions. Follow-
up to the event is important, but this is no different from the care you need to
take at any other facilitated event to ensure that the energy and impetus of the
day is not lost in good intentions that never result in change.

Large group logistics
These are powerful approaches to problem-solving. However, they create logis-
tical demands. If this is not your forte, you will need to work with someone
specializing in these troublesome practicalities. You need at least one very large
room – hotel ballrooms or public assembly rooms are ideal. You will need one
well-equipped breakout space for every 10 people and enough wall space for
substantial numbers of flip charts. With a large group you will need many sets
of flip charts, dozens of pens and also microphones. It helps to have several
laptops available so that the output of sessions can be keyed in immediately
and then emailed to every participant.

There is only space for an introduction to these methods here. For a com-
prehensive account of the various large group interventions and how to run
them, consult the excellent book by Barbara Bunker and Billie Alban (1996).
Even better, beg or blag your way into another facilitator’s session in order to
see at first hand how powerful the methodology is.

Note

1 My own book on the MBTI (2007b) gives more information on the 16 person-
ality types.

104 FACILITATING GROUPS

Organizational change and large group
interventions

Leith, Martin . Career Development International ; Bradford Vol. 1, Iss. 4, (1996): 19-23.

ProQuest document link

ABSTRACT
Six conditions are proposed which successful change efforts need to fulfill: self-determined and self-managed

change process; broad stakeholder involvement; comprehensive awareness of current reality; creative mindset;

systems thinking; and change model based on trust and co-operation. It is suggested that future search, real time

strategic change and open space technology meet most or all of these conditions, and a brief description of each

method is provided.

FULL TEXT

Martin Leith: Managing Director, The Centre for Large Group Interventions, London, UK

The six major weaknesses

Seventy per cent or more of all organization-wide change programmes – even some of the best designed ones – fail

to produce the desired results[1]. What is going wrong? It may be because the conventional approach to

organizational change has six major structural weaknesses.

Change is imposed

Most organizational change programmes are designed by experts and top management who assume that people

will be against the proposed changes, and will therefore need to be told to make them happen, or be persuaded of

their benefits. The vehicle for this telling and selling is generally the cascade session. Here, employees may buy

into the changes, only later to experience “buyer’s remorse” which gets expressed as resistance or even sabotage.

The designers – often with the best of intentions – demand that people implement their design without modifcation,

whereas the implementers usually want to adapt the design to fit their individual situations. This can lead to an

escalating pattern where the more the designers seek compliance, the more the implementers do their own thing,

or do nothing, ultimately resulting in the failure of the programme.

Stakeholder involvement is narrow

Designers of conventional change programmes generally exclude the vast majority of internal stakeholders from

the planning process. Also, they tend to ignore important external stakeholder groups such as suppliers,

customers and the local community. The opportunity to create a more widely-shared vision of the future is

therefore lost, and key stakeholders may fail to provide vitally-needed support.

Appreciation of current reality is limited

As a consequence of failing to involve from the outset everyone who will be affected by the change, an incomplete

picture of current reality is created. Wise strategic decisions are unlikely to be made when informed by such a

limited database.

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Problem solving is the prevailing mindset

Many models of organizational change are based on an elaboration of the problem-solving model[2], the

shortcomings of which have been documented at length by Fritz[3]. Results, if any, tend to be incremental

improvements rather than “order of magnitude” changes. Behavioural scientist Ron Lippett discovered that when

groups focus on solving problems they become depressed, but when they formulate plans by working backwards

from what they really desire, they develop energy, enthusiasm, optimism and high commitment[4]. More recently,

Senge[5] has written about the importance of moving towards a vision of the future that is shared by everyone in

the organization. Not only is the problem-solving approach less effective in achieving the desired outcomes, it also

results in minimal individual and organizational learning, and limited expansion of the organization’s capacity to

adapt.

Linear thinking is employed

Linear thinking usually leads to ineffective change strategies, for two reasons. First, it produces a programme with

a predetermined sequence of steps leading the organization towards a fixed goal. Rarely are there any

opportunities for the goal to be reviewed and, if necessary, redefined. But in the real world, changes in the internal

and external operating environments may render the original goal obsolete. Second, the issue is not viewed in a

broad enough context. If the complex web of causes and effects is not properly understood and delayed reactions

are not taken into account, then there is a strong likelihood that the change programme will fail to achieve its

objectives. It many cases it will set the organization back even further.

The change model is based on control and domination

Fearing the unpredictable, chaotic nature of change and the threat of its unwanted consequences, managers

employ pseudo-scientific change management techniques in a vain attempt to control the process and create

predictable and measurable results. But although managers can control micro level changes, such as the

introduction of new corporate stationery, at the macro level there are many variables which are beyond human

control. Major change can no more be managed than the weather can be managed. Indeed, many change

programmes are little more than ritual rain dances that satisfy the compelling need of men to do something in the

face of a crisis. But whereas rain dances are harmless, change programmes stifle creativity by leaving no space for

the unexpected to happen.

The six conditions for success

By considering the flip side of the weaknesses described above, six conditions for success can be identified. These

can be used to evaluate any new change approach which is under consideration.

The change process is self-determined and self-managed

The new approach will involve all those in the organization realizing for themselves that change is needed, by

noticing the gap between current reality and the shared vision (see the third and fourth conditions). They will

create strategies and action plans together, with each person taking responsibility for the successful

implementation of these plans.

There is broad stakeholder involvement

The new approach will allow everyone with a stake in the future success of the organization to be actively and

equally involved in the strategic planning process. As joint architects of the change strategy these stakeholders

will have a strong sense of ownership of the change strategy and will therefore be heavily committed to achieving

the mutually-agreed results.

Awareness of current reality is comprehensive

The new approach will have all stakeholders contributing to the creation of a comprehensive database of strategic

information, which will be kept up to date and made available to all concerned. By having a clear and complete

understanding of current reality, wise strategic and operational decisions will be made. And with information

widely available, power games will be reduced to a minimum.

The prevailing mindset is one of creating a shared future

The new approach will include the creation of a compelling vision that is shared by all stakeholders. Shared visions

are highly motivating, they generate a great deal of mutual support because people feel they are all part of the

same whole, and they create alignment as everyone is working towards the same ends[6].

Systems thinking is employed

Systems thinking underpins the new approach. Seductively simple models of cause and effect will no longer form

the basis of strategic decisions. Instead, organizational issues will be viewed in all their messy complexity. There

will be an awareness of multiple causes and effects (including those which are greatly separated in time), mutual

casuation, and repeating patterns of behaviour. By replacing linear thinking with systems thinking, people will stop

blaming each other and take personal responsibility for what happens. They will realize that control is an illusion,

reframe failure as feedback, and be better able to adapt quickly to rapidly changing circumstances. Regular

reviews, feedback meetings and debriefing sessions will enable individual and organizational learning to increase

rapidly, with the result that the organization will have the adaptability it needs to survive and prosper.

The change model is based on trust and co-operation

The new approach will replace control with trust and domination with co-operation. Instead of trying to overpower

the unseen forces of the natural world, people will gain creative power by co-operating with them. People will trust

their own abilities and the ability of others to do the right thing when given sufficient information. And they will

trust that the process of change will take the organization to wherever it needs to be, even if the destination is not

the one they originally chose. Leaders will still make interventions, but they will be subtle and wise interventions

like those described in The Tao of Leadership[7]. In this way people’s creativity will be unlocked and successfully

harnessed.

Large group interventions: a new approach to change

So does such a new approach for creating strategic change, displaying all six critical strengths, actually exist?

Possibly it does. On both sides of the Atlantic a growing number of organizations, including Accor, Boeing, Ford,

Marriott Hotels and 3M, are using large group interventions as a way of moving beyond the limitations of the

conventional approach to change. A large group intervention consists of one or more interactive events, togther

with the pre-event planning and the follow-up activities flowing from the event. Each gathering is attended by a

large number of participants (ten to 2,000 or more), from all levels and functions of the organization plus

representatives from other key stakeholder groups. Together the participants address real issues of strategic

importance and thereby enable the organization to move towards a shared vision of the future. There are at least

20 different methods which can be used to create a large group event[8]. Of these, the three methods which are

being adopted most widely are future search, real time strategic change and open space technology (see Table I).

The three main large group intervention methods

Method no 1: future search

The main facts about this method are:

– primary purpose: system-wide strategic planning;

– developer: Marvin Weisbord;

– length: two to three days;

– group size: 12-64 plus.

Brief description of the process

A steering committee consisting of eight or so key stakeholders plans the future search conference, at which

participants sit at round tables in mixed stakeholder groups, eight people to a table, and work through the five

stages of the future search process:

1 Review the past from personal, organizational and global perspectives; identify the events, trends and

developments shaping the future.

2 Map the present in all its messy complexity.

3 Create ideal future scenarios of the most desirable, attainable future, 5-20 years out.

4 Find common ground and develop a shared vision.

5 Create action plans.

The process is described in more detail in Weisbord and Janoff[9].

Key principles

The key principles are as follows:

– The whole system participates – a cross-section of as many interested parties as is practical.

– A global context forms the basis for local action.

– The focus is on finding common ground and moving into the future, not on conflict and problems.

– Self-management and personal responsibility are emphasized.

Method no 2: real time strategic change

The main facts are as follows:

– primary purpose: the design and implementation of whole systems change;

– developers: Kathie Dannemiller and Robert Jacobs;

– length: two to three days;

– group size: 12-2,000 plus

Brief description of the process

Real time strategic change (RTSC) events are sometimes confused with future search conferences because they

take place over two or three days and participants sit eight to a table in mixed stakeholder groups. However, the

similarity ends there. Despite the impression given in Jacobs’ book on the method[10], RTSC has no fixed format –

each event is custom designed around the following seven immutable principles.

Key principles

The seven principles are:

1 Get the whole system (or a large representative sample of it) in the room. Have a microcosm of this system

design the event.

2 Foster empowerment and participation.

3 Work in real time, with simultaneous planning and implementation.

4 Treat current reality as the key driver of the change process.

5 Include preferred futuring, where participants create a compelling representation of what “better” will look, sound

and feel like.

6 Build and maintain a common database of strategic information that is available to all.

7 Create community.

Method no 3: open space technology

Concerning this method, the main facts are:

– primary purpose: the creation of high energy, action-orientated, self-determined and self-managed meetings;

– developer: Harrison Owen;

– length: three hours – three or more days;

– group size: ten to 1,000.

Brief description of the process

At an open space event people come together with the aim of pooling their ideas and developing plans for creative

and collaborative action. They create and manage their own programme of parallel sessions around a central

theme, such as: What are the issues and opportunities facing the XYZ Corporation?, using a six step process:

1 Participants gather for the opening plenary, seated in a circle.

2 The facilitator states the theme of the event and describes the open space principles and process.

3 Anyone who feels so inspired can offer one or more sessions by creating a simple poster showing the title of the

session and his or her name, choosing a room and timeslot and making a brief announcement to the whole group.

4 The posters are fixed to the wall and participants sign up for the sessions that they wish to attend. People then

self-organize and pursue what interests them. A report of each session is produced and displayed in the plenary

room.

5 The large group reconvenes at the end of the day to share what has transpired.

6 At the end of the event everyone receives a set of reports from all the sessions, which may include

recommendations and action points.

A full description of the open space process is given in Owen[11].

Key principles

The following are the key principles:

– Whoever comes are the right people.

– Whenever it starts is the right time.

– Whatever happens is the only thing that could happen.

– When it’s over, it’s over.

– Use “The law of two feet” to make the best use of your time and energy.

The implications for management development

The large group intervention approach to change raises important questions for the future of management

development. One key question is this: How does the regular use of large scale, mixed stakeholder events change

the job of the manager?

The need for managers to become leaders has been argued at length in the management literature. According to

Don Warrick, a management academic and organizational consultant, leadership is: “the process of providing

vision, direction and inspiration”[12]. But in the new approach to change advocated here, vision is not handed down

from above – co-creating the vision is everyone’s job. Next on the list comes direction (“clarifying goals, values and

priorities”). There seems to be no reason why this activity could not be done by an external coach. Alternatively,

people could coach each other. Finally comes inspiration, which Warrick defines as “motivating people to meet the

challenge, valuing and encouraging people to be their best, recognising accomplishments, championing changes,

and being an example worthy of following”. There is much evidence to show that intrinsic motivation, of the sort

that comes from working towards a compelling vision, is a great deal more powerful than extrinsic motivation[13].

Valuing, encouraging and recognizing can be done by the coach. Championing changes will no longer be

necessary – people will do this for themselves, in the large group meetings and in self-managed subgroups. The

coach seems to be a prime candidate for job of “example worthy of following”. Coaching relationships are built on

trust, which is possibly the most critical success factor of them all.

In an organization characterized by continuous change, everyone will be both a leader and a follower, and everyone

will need to have mastery in the areas of communication, coaching, facilitation and self-management. These

abilities will be acquired not in surface-scratching training courses, but through intensive personal development

programmes in which people rethink their most fundamental values, beliefs and operating assumptions. Where

people will need the most help will be in making a radical shift from a linear, mechanistic, reductionist view of the

world to a systemic, organic, holistic one.

Summary and conclusion

Conventional approaches to system-wide change are not working – what is needed is a new approach that meets

the six conditions for effective change. A more effective approach may be one based on large group interventions,

and there is evidence from organizations such as Boeing which support this idea. The implications for

management development are far reaching. Instead of considering how the regular use of large-scale events will

change the job of the manager, it may be better to ask: In organizations that adopt the new approach to change,

will managers be needed at all? An old joke says that if voting actually changed anything it would be banned. In the

same way, managers are unlikely to vote themselves out of office. The tragedy is that if the failure rate of change

programmes continues to be 70 per cent or more, then many once-great organizations will sink along with their

managers.

References

1. Doyle, K., “Who’s killing total quality?”, Incentive, Vol. 8, 1992, pp. 12-19.

2. Cummings, T.G., “From programmed change to self design: learning how to change organisations”, Organization

Development Journal, Vol. 13 No. 4, 1995, pp. 20-31.

3. Fritz, R., Creating, Ballantine Books, New York, NY, 1991.

4. Weisbord, M.R. (Ed.), Discovering Common Ground, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA, 1992, pp. 48-9.

5. Senge, P., The Fifth Discipline, Century Business, London, 1990.

6. Kiefer, C.F. and Stroh, P., “A new paradigm for developing organizations”, in Adams, J.D. (Ed.), Transforming

Work, Miles River Press, Alexandria, VA, pp. 171-84.

7. Heider, J., The Tao of Leadership, Wildwood House, Aldershot, 1986 .

8. Leith, M., The CLGI Guide to Large Group Events, The Centre for Large Group Interventions, London, 1996.

9. Weisbord, M.R. and Janoff, S., Future Search, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA, 1994.

10. Jacobs, R.W., Real Time Strategic Change, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA, 1994.

11. Owen, H.H., Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide, Abbott, Potomac, MD, 1992.

12. Warrick, D.D., “Best practices occur when leaders lead, champion change and adopt a sound change process”,

Organization Development Journal, Vol. 13 No. 4, 1995, pp. 91-9.

13. Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Csikszentmihalyi, I.S. (Eds), Optimal Experience, University of Cambridge, Cambridge,

1988.

Illustration

Caption: Table I; Do the three methods meet the six conditions for success?

DETAILS

Subject: Intervention; Stakeholders; Strategic planning; Organizational change; Problem

solving; Design; Organizational learning; Success; Designers

Business indexing term: Subject: Stakeholders Strategic planning Organizational change Organizational

learning

Classification: 2500: Organizational behavior

Publication title: Career Development International; Bradford

Volume: 1

Issue: 4

Pages: 19-23

Number of pages: 0

Publication year: 1996

Publication date: 1996

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Place of publication: Bradford

LINKS
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Country of publication: United Kingdom, Bradford

Publication subject: Occupations And Careers

ISSN: 13620436

e-ISSN: 17586003

Source type: Scholarly Journal

Language of publication: English

Document type: News

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13620439610124675

ProQuest document ID: 219320469

Document URL: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/organizational-change-large-group-

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Last updated: 2021-09-09

Database: ProQuest One Academic

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