Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Overgeneralisations of Great Facilitation?

[Stuart Staniford (stuart]

Rob Sandelin wrote:

> I have also seen skilled folks in groups take people to places they did not
> want to go, because in their experience, this is "what is good for them."
> This can be especially problematic when it is sprung on people without their
> knowledge or consent. I occasionally tread this edge  myself in my work,
> sometimes I fall off the deep end, sometimes I stay in the shallow end of
> the pool. So far, I haven't drowned anybody yet, but there are places I am
> sure I will not be asked back because I engaged some folks way deeper than
> some ever wanted  to go. Half the group thought this was wonderful, the
> other half thought it was a disaster.

I think there's definitely a grey area here that has bothered me in the
past, and that Hans is probing at when he wrote:

> Who is being served when a burning soul starts to
> find the emotionality of a group fascinating. Who is being served when we
> delve into the psychosocial side of groups?

I agree that those are the key questions that a facilitator doing more
emotional work should be asking themselves.  If the facilitator is taking
the group somewhere scary just for the fun of the ride... that's not ok
(IMO).  And I can imagine that there could be facilitators who facilitate
well, but are not aware enough of their own motivations to realize they
were doing this (I'm not accusing you Rob, for a moment).  So I think Hans
has a good point.

Getting consent is good in theory, but in practice people often have no
idea what they are getting into in mediating some conflict, so it's not
clear it's really *informed* consent.  And oftentimes stuff just comes up
seemingly out of nowhere and one is making split second decisions about
where to take it.

But I don't feel that means I/we/whoever should say "I don't have
professional training, I better not go anywhere near this".  Because
otherwise there would hardly be any facilitators in the communities
movement doing the great stuff that is actually going on.

And it's often a case of "what is the alternative?".  For the stuff I did
with Marsh Commons (which are my most extreme experiences of dealing with
upset in meetings), I was not perfect.  But, realistically, it was me or
nothing at that time, and I'm fairly convinced I was quite a lot better
than nothing.  Some were kind enough to say I saved the group from falling
apart, but I think that's probably an overstatement - financially they
didn't really have any viable choice but to stay together and finish the
project, and they'd have realized that eventually.  And some were only
marginally happy with the work I did.  

I think with hindsight I wish I'd done a better job of managing
expectations up front.  If all or some part of a group is bitterly
long-term upset about something, a few well facilitated meetings on the
issue may be enough to set the group on a much different path and I believe
I did help with that.  But I doubt it's ever feasible to make everyone
happy and loving in one easy retreat; it's been a much longer harder road
back than that for Marsh Commons, and the group members have done most of
the work themselves individually.  That was predictable and would have been
worth making clearer up front.

Stuart.

[I would be interested in doing more facilitation/mediation work for
communities with serious entrenched conflicts in future if a group wants to
pay my travel expenses and it works with my (rather crazy) schedule].

-- 
Stuart Staniford  ---  President  ---  Silicon Defense
                   stuart [at] silicondefense.com
(707) 445-4355                     (707) 445-4222 (FAX)