Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: difficult members

[Russell L. Brand (brand]

Pam,

In my experience people generally ask for things other than what they
want.    This is the leading problem we see as programmers, reference
librarians and as mediators.  Generally we have to do some level of
requirements analysis, and/or value clarification before we can get
people to have a clue as to what they really want.  I give *LOTS* of
copies of Roger Fischer's books, "Getting to Yes" and "Getting
Together" as gifts to peope that I have important on going
interactions with and have started to give "Raising a thinking Childen"
by Myrna Shure which addresses many of these same issues but in the
context of child rearing rather than mediation and "Exploring
Requirements Analysis" by Weinberg that talks about them in the
context of software.  

/Russell