RE: Consensus
From: Rob Sandelin (Floriferousclassic.msn.com)
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1997 10:00:51 -0600
Ruby said: 
We are slow to get good at it, although we've improved immensely over time--1
reason is that it's hard to get everyone on board at any given time so we are
at very different skill levels.
 Snip-----
It's also more important to have your facilitators very skilled, because a
good facilitator with a clear vision of consensus process will shape it and
educate as s/he goes along. 

In my experience, a group is well served to encourage a small group to become 
master facilitators. It is good for everybody to learn about and get training 
on group decision making, but it is usually not a good idea to rotate the 
facilitation around. 

Excellent faclitation is planned, and takes training on the the part of the 
facilitator. Frankly, its a level of commitment that most folks that attend a 
meeting simply do not have, and having a pool of really good facilitators 
takes time and commitment. 

The outcome and effectiveness of the collaborative group meeting is directly 
proportional to skill and preparation of the facilitator. Bad, untrained 
facilitators can actually damage groups so that people do not attend meetings, 
or worse, leave the group because the meetings are so bad. 

Meetings should be fun, something people look forward to, and a major 
community building activity. If they are not, I would suggest taking my 
running effective meetings workshop or checking out the materials on the 
Intentional Communities resource Page at 
http://www.infoteam.com/nonprofit/nica/resource.html

Rob Sandelin
NICA



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