Re: outbursts in meetings
From: Lynn Nadeau (welcomeolympus.net)
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 21:06:16 -0600 (MDT)
>I think you are asking to remove strong emotions and passion from meetings.

I don't seem to have articulated the situation well, judging from the 
responses. 
I might have done better not to mention my personal sensitivity to raised 
voices/exaggerations etc. The resulting conclusions people made about how 
I just need to "toughen up" and not be so "guarded" don't really address 
the situation of outbursts that make nearly everyone in a room upset. 
Anyone who knows me knows I'm no fragile wimp, and willingly engage in 
"passionate" debate and emotional sharings. As a group, we manage to 
navigate lots of strongly held opinions, emotions, positions, and 
differences in personal style regarding how much rhetoric or 
assertiveness people use.

I'm talking about outbursts that seem very disrespectful of others. You 
don't need a sanitized non-intimate overly-cautious atmosphere to not 
want "suzy" shouting at "joe" in a way that has him sobbing and dashing 
for the door, or that "suzy" herself will, upon reflection, feel 
motivated to offer big apologies for, to "joe" and everyone. 

I'm talking about stuff that has such a charge on it that if someone said
>"From the tone of your voice and your words you seem distressed. Can you help 
us find the 
>cause of your emotion?"
the outburster would probably respond with expletives. 

Or a situation where the outburster makes a big charged accusation or 
judgement and slams out of the meeting, leaving many people upset and 
"incomplete". 

I'm describing an exceptional occurence. Normally, things go well, 
including "passion and emotion."   Facilitators, and others in a 
dialogue, work to uncover underlying fears, hurts, or other strong 
emotions that color people's stances. And we have an initial check in 
period when each person has a chance to let others know if they are under 
a lot of stress, or preoccupation with other matters, or other stuff that 
will be a filter for their experience at the meeting. And we know each 
other well enough to expect differences in style. 

> Sometimes some intervention work might be useful as well...
>check out the online resource at www.ic.org/nica/book/cover.htm

Lots of excellent general guidelines here and notes about all different 
levels of public/private/direct/indirect ways of addressing problem 
behaviors. 

>A great question for the facilitator team is: How will we deal with
>emotional storms that arise?
And that was my question. Looking for "fire extinguisher" solutions for 
situations that have slipped the net of all the reasonable precautions. 
Post facto, we invariably can piece together what each party could/should 
have done differently, for better results. And implement appropriate 
interventions of the sort Rob lists on the NICA site. I was just looking 
for ideas about the very immediate response in such a case. I guess at 
this point I can just say, "Never mind." Thanks for trying to help! 

Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.rosewind.org
http://www.ptguide.com

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