Large Group Facilitation

There are many ways to look at large groups, such as characteristics, features, benefits, applications, outcomes, dynamics, structure and so on.  People are often wary of more change, suffering from change fatigue and fearful that change is simply a code word for something nasty that will happen to them.  This inertia often stems directly from the inability of organizations to truly engage their people, who can become alienated, cynical, isolated or consumed by internal politics.

 

The big difference between conventional strategic processes, like planning and large group processes, is that the former involves only the top team of senior managers and the latter seeks to get the whole system into one room.  When you get large numbers of people working on the future in real time, the process benefits from being open and transparent. Since all participants are able to make contributions and affect outcomes, these processes are highly democratic.

 

Because of this feature and because participants are fully involved, there is a high degree of commitment and ownership of outcomes.  Hearts and minds are won at the point of participation through dialogue as equals and open voting on priorities.

 

Let's look more closely at why conventional change often fails in organizations.  The agendas are for the most part self-organized -- participants decide what they want to discuss, and create their own agendas.  If sponsors genuinely want new inputs and are willing to listen (and respond), the processes will work.  The processes can involve up to 500 people in Open Space and 120 people in the other methods.

 

Open Space

What is Open Space Technology?

Open Space Technology is one way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organisation, to create inspired meetings and events. Over the last 15 years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organisations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity.

 

In Open Space meetings, events and organisations, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create?

 

With groups of 5 to 1000 -- working in one-day workshops, three-day conferences, or the regular weekly staff meeting -- the common result is a powerful, effective connecting and strengthening of what's already happening in the organisation: planning and action, learning and doing, passion and responsibility, participation and performance.

 

When and Why?

Open Space works best when the work to be done is complex, the people and ideas involved are diverse, the passion for resolution (and potential for conflict) are high, and the time to get it done was yesterday. It's been called passion bounded by responsibility, the energy of a good coffee break, intentional self-organization, spirit at work, chaos and creativity, evolution in organization, and a simple, powerful way to get people and organizations moving -- when and where it's needed most.

 

And, while Open Space is known for its apparent lack of structure and welcoming of surprises, it turns out that the Open Space meeting or organisation is actually very structured -- but that structure is so perfectly fit to the people and the work at hand, that it goes unnoticed in its proper role of supporting (not blocking) best work. In fact, the stories and work plans woven in Open Space are generally more complex, more robust, more durable -- and can move a great deal faster than expert- or management-driven designs.

 

What will happen?

You never know exactly what will happen when you open the space for people to do their most important work, but you can guarantee these results when any group gets into Open Space:

1. All of the issues that are MOST important to the participants will be raised.
2. All of the issues raised will be addressed by those participants most qualified and capable of getting something done on each of them.
3. In a time as short as one or two days, all of the most important ideas, discussion, data, recommendations, conclusions, questions for further study, and plans for immediate action will be documented in one comprehensive report -- finished, printed and in the hands of participants when they leave.

 

Wisdom Councils

The wisdom council is comprised of twelve to twenty-four people who are randomly selected to act as a microcosm of a larger population.  The pool of possible participants generally includes everyone - managers, hourly employees and salaried people. Like a jury, they seek a unanimous view. Unlike a jury, the group itself determines what they will discuss.  It's like a "time-out" --the members of an organisation ask themselves how things are going and how they might go better.

 

With the aid of a facilitator, these people enter into a high quality dialogue seeking collaborative breakthroughs.  People are encouraged to respond with creativity and open-mindedness so the organisation is elevated to a new level of trust and capability.

 

Because the Council is all-inclusive and because it disbands immediately after presenting its results, it invokes a self-organising process rather than a managed change process.

 

The late physicist David Bohm recently drew a distinction between a discussion, where people talk back and forth with one another, and a dialogue, where people meet without a predetermined agenda yet a "coherent culture of shared meaning" emerges.  The Guild for Psychological Studies has pioneered dialogue as a process of individual transformation for more than 50 years and the Creative Problem Solving Institutes have been advancing creative thinking for more than 40 years.

 

The Wisdom Council needs a process facilitator who takes an active role. He or she helps the group determine and meet the key issues, often in an organisational environment where they seem un-discussable; influences the group process so that dialogue, not discussion, is used; and helps to stimulate creative thinking where breakthrough insights, understandings, or new feelings can emerge. The aim is an emergent consensus, or a collective breakthrough, rather than agreement on a compromise. For this, one cannot rely on a step-by-step facilitation approach, nor exclusively on the self-management of participants. It is better to have facilitators with advanced knowledge of group dynamics and creative thinking who manage the group process. In this case the need for discussion is greatly diminished, and usually restricted to fleshing out details.

 

The Wisdom Council is a low risk, low investment strategy for building community.  Organizations that are a part of the quality movement and wish to focus on real quality can find the Wisdom Council valuable.

 

During Wisdom Council meetings, the coordinators ensure that participants can be sequestered if need be, that they have accurate meeting notes, and that requests from the from the Council can be met.  For instance, the group may ask for the opportunity to meet with experts, or the organization's president, or to present their results to certain audiences.  The Wisdom Council can be a powerful and valuable process for any large organization that is open to exploring growth through transformation.