• 03Nov

    The Art of Facilitation

    Counselling, Mediation

    Facilitation is the art of controlling a room full of angry, disgruntled people who all feel entitled to something, and having something productive come out of the time spent together. It’s the in term for what used to be good, old-fashioned negotiating between a lot of different interests. These days, it is a lot more important to make sure that all the rules of meeting protocol are followed, to demonstrate compliance with a legal sense of fairness.

    My favorite example of the usefulness of facilitation is something I did years before the term was in vogue.

    It was my job to bring together 22 different garbage companies in Dade County and get them to agree to jointly fund a settlement which mostly benefited their most hated rival. I assembled all the owners of these companies in a room. Needless to say I was the only woman. I wore my gray pin-stripe power dress.

    Ignoring conventional wisdom, I let them vent for an hour before taking charge. They ranted and occasionally cursed, always accompanied with a ‘begging your pardon’. I smiled kindly. After they said all they had to say, I firmly laid out the none too pleasant alternatives to my suggestion, and got them all to go along. It took another two weeks to wrap up all the details and get signed settlement documents and payments.

    It was one of the most satisfying moments of my career, because I found myself utilizing a power I didn’t know I had. That was the catalyst which propelled me into dispute resolution.

    Posted by alex @ 11:43 pm

64 Responses

WP_Cloudy

Leave a Comment

Please note: Comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.