I'm delighted to announce that Interactions has won the contract to design and manage a consultation process for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to inform the first strategy for arts development in the county. We'll be working closely with the Arts Office and I'm looking forward to meeting artists, policy makers and audience members over the course of the next few months as we wonder out loud and draft a plan that speaks to the priorities for arts development in the county over the next 3 - 5 years. Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council is a new client for Interactions and we're very excited to be their chosen consultation partners for this assignment.
We're also looking forward to rolling out a creative approach to the consultation using our Dynamic Participation model. We've already used the Dynamic Participation model in our work with The Arts Council in 2005 where we designed and rolled out a national consultation process involving over 1000 people, 100 meetings and many geographically disparate locations to inform the national plan for arts development. Set against significant consultation fatigue in this sector, the consultation process was widely hailed as a successful model of public consultation and resulted in the recently published Partnership for the Arts (available on The Arts Council's website).
As I mentioned in the previous post, I use a process called Dynamic Participation as a methodology for consulting and facilitating. Increasingly we live in an age where "participation" is thrown around like snuff at a wake - what exactly does it mean? and more to the point, what does it look like? Here are some of the principles that I work by:
- Always work in the “here and now”. Who said what to whom a week ago; a month ago or a year ago is rarely useful in terms of moving a situation forward. Working with what is going on in the room right now is.
- Always work on a live issue. Role plays and case studies can be really interesting ways of getting a group to work on a task, but they rarely result in that group applying the learning in their work environment after the workshop/session has finished. Working on something that is a live issue for everyone in the room is one sure fired way to ensuring that learning sticks.
- Context is as important as content. How someone decides to "put something into the room" is always as important as what they say and is a huge source of information about how this group works together in helpful and unhelpful ways.
- Making a difference starts with being in the room. If people can’t understand why you have invited them together then the process is pointless. If however, you can show people by the way in which you interact with them that their presence and view is essential then you create immediate buy in.
- Keep the process public. Have the conversations about why you are there, what is expected and hoped for, boundaries around time etc out loud and with those you invite into your process. Take a risk and produce notes of the meeting that summarise what has been discussed and distribute these openly to all who attend.
- Dialogue, not monologue. Are you sure you are consulting/facilitating? And not disseminating? A real dialogue involves myriad views…are you open to changing yours on the basis of what you hear? If so, then a real and genuine dialogue can yield exciting results. If not, then you are engaged in a monologue and people will rarely come back for a second lecture.
- Roles come with responsibilities and that goes for everyone in the conversation. Dynamic Participation offers a space to ask each participant – what is my role? And what is my responsibility? Taking the blame culture out of organisational life can only be done if both of these questions are asked and answered by everyone in the room (including the consultant).
- Attend to boundaries, not rules. By attending to the boundaries of the process you leave room for difference. By attending to rules you impose conformity.
- Ask those who present with negative statements to offer positive alternatives, thereby focussing on what is possible as distinct from what is not.
- Defensive people are usually trying to protect something important. Instead of getting frustrated with the defence try asking “what is so important here that it needs this kind of protection?”
How much responsibility does a facilitator take on for what happens in a room with a group with whom he or she is working? This is something I think about quite a bit depending on the kind of relationship, the longevity of it and what the task in hand is.
I am a believer in keeping the planning conversations about the process in the room and out loud. Any other approach infantilises clients and results in the facilitator having more control than s/he needs to. If the ultimate aim of the process is to generate action then this set up can stifle that before you even begin.
The “difficult” or “angry” person in a group is the place where this approach is really tested and I’ve worked with this in myriad ways over the course of my consulting career. Now if I’m working over an extended period of time then I can process what that hostility may be communicating on behalf of the group. You need a good working alliance and time and space to do that kind of work. If I am in a situation where I have a short amount of time and a clear piece of work the group needs to engage with then my approach is more direct.
If someone is “interrupting” the task of the group by complaining (usually about a deficit of some kind) then instead of dealing with them directly about it I put the following into the room.
I appreciate the fact that people feel comfortable speaking freely about what they wish to talk about
However, the context for the meeting is that we are here to discuss the following items – and then I refer to the invitation or agenda.
There are resources available to the group including my facilitating skill, time, physical resources etc and they need, as a group, to make a choice about how they want to do that. We can talk about what’s “not” happening or we can talk about what is….They can choose to change the agenda and focus on other items and I will willingly go with them there and facilitate that discussion. What I am not willing to do is make a decision for them and then find out that many people in the room are disappointed that we didn’t talk about the agenda which was agreed.
I generally find that putting that out into a group does several things
- It respects the diversion from the topic at hand, and the person who is brave enough to say out loud what some people may not be able to articulate.
- It puts responsibility for the content of the conversation where it belongs – with the group
- It puts responsibility for the context and boundary of the conversation where it belongs – with the facilitator
- It engages with the participants as adults, with choices about how they use the resources available to them
- It requires action on the part of the group, which if the outcomes of the meeting are to be successful will require the same kind of action.
The alternative is for the facilitator to take all the responsibility which in turn means that you prevent a group from learning how they choose to include and exclude.
So far I’ve never encountered a group that hasn’t been able to engage with that task and make a decision about how to continue to work together.
I like questions. I like them more than answers. Very often when I’m pitching for a piece of work I’ll ask questions as well as offering solutions. Sometimes, the questions we ask say more about us than the answers we provide. Here are 10 questions I’ve used in organisational contexts. I’d love to hear some of yours. Or, I’d love to hear questions you wish you’d been asked.
- If you could appoint anyone – alive or dead, fictional or real to the board of directors who would it be? And why?
- If this organisation was a religious group – what would constitute a cardinal sin?
- What’s the most exciting experience you have had in this company? What were the characteristics of it? How can we create more experiences like that?
- What are we not allowed to talk about around here?
- How would your favourite TV personality describe this organisation?
- If you could pick one person to give you feedback on how you manage in this company – who would it be and why?
- If this organisation were a film what would it be called? Which actor would play you?
- What would it be like to work for a company that’s the exact opposite of the one you work in now?
- Where do the real decisions get made around here?
- If you could give yourself a new job title that reflects the actual job you do, what would it be?