Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: refining concerns in a timely way

[Hans Tilstra (tilstra]

I'd hope that anyone facilitating has a broad repertoire of group approaches
available. That, and self-knowledge. I often tell myself to "get off my soap
box" after talking for anything over five minutes. Unfortunately, many
people have had rather bad role modeling in schools, as teachers can be the
worst culprits in imposing rather de-activating I-talk-and-you-listen
approaches.

So, when eliciting information which may be of controversial or a personal
nature, I steer towards pairing up and some form of rotation. The advantage
of rotation is that people end up talking to others they may not naturally
gravitate towards, but will have a discussion that really gives a broader
sense of perspective.

I'm cautious of groups of three, as there is always seems to be the odd one
out.

When groups need to have a sense of the breadth of views, then I steer
towards line-ups, preferably with an interesting construct (eg. do we want a
greener direction or do economic factors override).

If I have gained sufficient followship, I may even introduce stakeholders.
Here, rather than asking people to represent their own views, the form of
the discusssion is designed to ensure that people understand the
perspectives of such stakeholders as the bank (often notably ogre-built),
the developer, the person on a low income, the person with a passion for
social justice / sustainability. These stakeholders don't necessarily need
to be present, but it's often breathtaking to elicit how group members
construe the motives of these people.

Whatever decision you make as a facilitator, keep in mind that "form follows
function".

:-) Hans
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~cohouse



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