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A MANUAL FOR GROUP FACILITATORS
by *center for conflict resolution*
731 State Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53703
The Center for Conflict Resolution (CCR) is a nonprofit collective in Madison,
Wisconsin, which teaches other groups skills in group process, conflict
resolution and problem solving. CCR does this by sponsoring workshops, by
providing consultation and crisis intervention, and by offering written
materials through a resource center. CCR works with diverse groups including
food and housing cooperatives, various collectives, the public school system,
city government, university groups, and many others. Although many of these
organizations do not use consensus decision making, CCR has remained committed
to this process as a way of increasing group cohesion, member involvement, and
meeting effectiveness.
Preface
This manual was written in order to share with others some of the
information and skills that we, members of the Center for Conflict Resolution,
have been developing over the past seven years. The Center for Conflict
Resolution is a non-profit, educational organization. Through workshops,
consultation, intervention and a resource center we provide information on
conflict, group process and problem solving to other groups. We have also
sponsored several conferences on peace-related issues and social concerns and
have provided training for nonviolent action. Since our inception in 1970 we
have been in a constant state of evolution as we attempt--both as a group and
as individuals--to find ways of combining education and action in areas of
peace and social justice.
Five and half years ago CCR became a collective, replacing official
leaders with facilitators and implementing a consesus decision making process.
We began experimenting with this kind of group structure to see how far we
could go in sharing the leadership function among all our members and in
practicing our values of cooperative and egalitarian group process. Learning
to operate as a collective has not always been easy, but it has been rewarding
and educational and has vastly improved our ability to help other groups in our
function as a skills-sharing center.
Collectives, operating on group concensus, are only one of many possible
forms of group structure. We do not feel that every group has to be a
collective to use the concepts and skills that we describe in this manual.
However, we are convinced that a group is most effective when all its members
can participate fully in decision making and group activities. People support
what they help to create. Most individuals in leadership roles understand
this, but for a variety of reasons, they are often drawn into taking more
responsibility than they need to or want to. We have decided to write this
manual in order to synthesize all we know about non-directive leadership, which
we call facilitation, and to make this information available to others.
This manual is especially addressed to persons who are inexperienced in
performing the role of facilitator, but who are called on to act in that
capacity. We have particularly focused on a resource person-as-facilitator
role--when person is asked to facilitate a group which is interested in some
area of expertise that the person has. However, we expect the information in
this manual to be useful to people in a wide variety of group situations in
addition to the ones we specifically address.
We do not expect this manual to be the only learning resource for
people who are acquiring facilitation skills. The most important learning
resource one can have is practical experience, particularly the guided
experiences of an actual training course. However, we hope this manual will be
valuable as an introductory survey, as an accompaniment to other training, or
as a refresher to practicing facilitators.
The information we present here comes primarily from our own
experience. Although we have drawn on formal education and published research,
everything included in this handbook also registers as good sense to us and is
confirmed by our experience. We hope to hear from people who read and use this
book. Please send us your comments since we see this manual as one step in a
long process of the development of a field of information by people practicing
these skills.
The five of us who worked together on this manual are--
Brian Auvine: has worked at the Center for Conflict Resolution and as a
research scientist for the University of Wisconsin for five years.
Mary Extrom: in her five years' involvement with CCR has trained individuals
in nonviolent direct action and in group facilitation. Some projects she has
worked on involve support work with Native Americans, a study of racism in
education, and counseling women.
Scott Poole: has a Master's degree in Communication Arts. He has worked at
CCR for two years and has taught college communications courses for four years.
His interests are organizational and group communication and techniques of
nonviolent social action.
Michel Shanklin: has been with CCR for a year and a half. She has worked with
community groups for four years, including working with a women's center and
crisis counseling.
January 31, 1977
The Center for Conflict Resolution
731 State Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53703
HOW TO USE THIS MANUAL
We want you to be an active user of this manual, a user who will
evaluate the material we provide according to your own viewpoint and
experience, who will adapt our information to fit your own situation. For this
reason we have left wide margins on the pages for you to write notes in, and
have written the manual in outline form so that you can locate specific
information at the time you need it.
We hope you will read the entire manual, in the order that it is
written. However we have attempted to make each section able to stand alone as
much as possible. The Table of Contents includes all of the major outline
headings and by glancing at it, you can probably find where the information you
are looking for is located.
We have tried to present information in a more or less chronological
order. Our chapters follow the sequence of preparation, getting started, group
process and evalutation. Unfortunately, however, the subject of facilitation
does not easily break up into discrete parts. The material in different
sections is strongly interdependent and it is not always possible to put each
section next to all the other sections that pertain to it. For this reason,
the manual contains both redundancy and gaps. If you are reading it straight
through, you may notice some repetition of basic points. We feel that this is
necessary in order to treat each section fairly. We also feel that certain
values and guidelines bear repeating. Even with this repetition, however, we
find that many sections require reference to other sections in the manual. We
have tried to place these references at the ends of sections where they are
easy to locate and don't interfere with the content of that section. If you
are familiar with the Table of Contents, you will be in a better position to
follow our organization of material.
We strongly urge that all users read the Introduction before reading
other parts of the manual. Words such as "facilitation" and "leadership" have
different meanings to different people. This first chapter should give you
some perspective on where we are coming from, what our values are, and the
basic principles on which the rest of the manual is based.
At the front of the manual is a short glossary that includes words
(both common and technical) which we use in a specialized sense. This is to
let you know exactly what _we_ mean by a certain word which may have different
connotations to different people.
We have also included a short bibliography of books which contain
exercises. Throughout this manual we will be speaking of exercises, how and
when to use them. But, with a few exceptions, we have not included exercises
in the text. This is because there are many other good sources of exercises,
we are working with a limited amount of space, and we want our readers to be
able to find and use a wide variety of exercises, not become dependent on the
few that we might recommend.
GLOSSARY
Below is a list of words which we feel need to be defined for the
readers of this manual. You will probably find that most of those terms are
already familiar to you in some context, but because we use them in a special
sense, we feel we should clarify them. These are words which are used
frequently in the text, but which, for the most part, are not defined in the
text. If a word you are looking for does not appear below, skim the Table of
Contents, since we have not included words which appear in a major heading in
the manual.
AUTHORITY: power to direct or influence a group that is derived either from
one's role in the group, or from having information other group members do not
have access to.
CLOSURE: a sense of having reached a natural stopping place, a feeling of
completion.
CONSENSUS DECISION MAKING (also just CONSENSUS): A decision-making process
in which _all_ parties involved explicitly agree to the final decision.
Consensus decision making does _not_ mean that all parties are _completely_
satisfied with the final outcome, but that the decision is acceptable to all
because no one feels that his or her vital interests or values are violated by
it.
CONTENT: The _subject_ of a meeting or discussion, what is being talked
about or dealt with.
CUE: an indirect message, often nonverbal, that indicates a certain feeling,
desire, or state of mind. Cues are usually unintentional hints, though they
may be given on purpose.
EXERCISE: A patterned activity used in a group to promote awareness or
learning. Exercises can be used to demonstrate or practice a concept, or to
cause the participants to become more aware of themselves or their interactions
with others.
EXPECTATIONS: Participants' anticipations about what will happen in a group
situation, both _what_ will happen, and the _way_ in which it will happen.
FEEDBACK: A response to a message that tells how the listener perceived the
message--how he or she felt about it, interpreted it, or understood it. Also,
a similar response to an action.
FREEZE: To limit oneself to a single, narrow mode of behavior or perception,
while at the same time failing to see other possible modes.
FOLLOW-UP: To take an action which continues or reinforces some other action
_or_ to inquire about the effects of a previous action.
GROUP PROCESS: The means by which group members interact, make decisions,
handle problems, and develop roles.
HIDDEN AGENDA: A personal expectation or motivation which can affect how
that person behaves in a group or feels about a group, but which is not known
to others in the group. A person may have a hidden agenda without being aware
of the fact. (For instance, an individual may come to a meeting on "Economic
Problems of Cities" because he or she believes energy sources will be
discussed. The person may plan to deliberately steer the discussion in that
direction, or the person may not even realize that he or she has a private goal
not necessarily identical with the group's goal.)
INTERVENE: To take an active role in changing a problem situation, (for
example, when a facilitator decides to take an assertive lead in suggesting and
implementing solutions in a conflict, as described in "Crisis Intervention.")
NEED: Something which an individual or group feels it must have in order to
achieve a sense of well being.
NORM: An accepted and expected model of behavior in a group, or in society.
POWER: The ability to exert influence over a group or over an individual in
making decisions, establishing norms, or performing an activity.
PROCESS: See "Group Process"
RESOURCE PERSON: An individual whose role in a group is to provide
information on a subject that the group is interested in.
VALUES CLARIFICATION: A process which helps an individual identify his or
her basic values. This process often involves using exercises.