Putting Step 6 into Practice

Putting Step #6 into Practice

1. Use your shared hopes as the basis for evaluation. Before evaluating the first of your options, reflect on the hopes you share as a group for resolving the issue you face. When participants look at the bigger picture and consider the desired outcome for the group, they provide deeper and more useful insights.

2. Begin with the status quo option before proceeding to the more adventuresome options. Work through the list of options you developed in Step #4, but evaluate the status quo option first—this will be your benchmark for considering your other options. The process of exchanging statements about the negatives and positives of participants' current experience, and the level of understanding that results, can be a springboard for new directions.

3. Start with the option's negative points. Ask each person to express a different negative statement about the option under consideration. Proceed around the group in this way until all possible negatives have been stated for the option. Anyone who doesn't come up with a statement that hasn't already been mentioned should pass. Repetition of information allows cliques to form, which lead to adversarial dynamics.

   Be sure to start with the negatives about an option, because most people are better able to consider positives after stating the negatives. Encourage people who favor a particular option to participate in expressing its negatives. Often, they know its shortcomings better than anyone else.

4. Instruct everyone to listen to what the others say without questioning or debating. Even if there is disagreement about someone's negative statement, participants should acknowledge and accept it as that person's point of view. After hearing differing points of view, people are apt to revise their thinking. You don't need to agree with someone else's specific reasons to reach agreement on a shared course of action.

   The more contentious the issue, the more important it is to avoid debate. Remember that winners and losers make poor learners. Be alert for the wisdom that can be shared by means of this sort of information exchange.

5. Then state the positives about the option. Follow the same guidelines and procedures you followed for expressing negatives, but have each person express a different positive about the option. Encourage naysayers to identify something positive.

   Sometimes one participant will mention a positive that someone else stated as a negative. For example, an option for a new school facility required that transportation be available to reach the school—which some might consider a negative. On the flip side, the location offered safety advantages—a positive—because no one would walk to it along unsafe streets. It's acceptable if the same point shows up in both the negatives and the positives.

6. Proceed to express the negatives and positives of each of the remaining options. Use the same process for expressing negatives and positives about each of the other options. The structured discussion promotes balance and candor. Advocates of a particular option usually become more receptive to other options because they don't want to appear as if they're stacking the deck in favor of their own ideas.

7. After hearing all of the negatives and positives for each of your initial options, invite suggestions for new alternatives. The open expression of negatives and positives and the balanced participation of all group members frequently stimulate ideas for new options. Often something better arises than the choices you first considered. The discovery of new options is one of the rewards of the ten-step process and proof that it is creating distinctive value for your organization.

BE AN AGENT OF HOPE

Don't debate. This is a remnant of the dynamics based on fear. Instead, revel in the freedom and productive results that come from a respectful, insightful, and efficient exchange of information.