The Right Frame of Mind


Your frame of mind is the most important resource you bring to facilitating the process. Facilitating meetings of talented, passionate people who are dealing with the toughest issues they face—make-or-break issues for their business or community organizations—is a gift to them and a gift for you. It's an opportunity to help people during vulnerable moments to be their better selves and find solutions to their problems together.

In doing this work, facilitators must guard against letting themselves get in the way. This doesn't mean just keeping personal biases out of the discussions of the issues. It's something deeper. Facilitators must let go of their own need to succeed so that the group can.

When I first began facilitating groups using this process, I fretted about whether the participants would come to an agreement and whether I'd look good (and have earned my fee and enhanced my reputation). I felt anxious, maybe a little defensive, and wanted to control how things went. Sounds like fear, doesn't it? How could I invite people to pursue their hopes and abandon the fear-filled dynamics endemic in their organizations when I was living in fear and projecting it in my own role?

Fortunately, Art Stevens, the spiritual guide and facilitator who taught me the spiritual traditions of this process, gave me the perspective I needed. "Facilitating this process, even doing it as a group member, is not about you. When you're at your best, you're not in charge. You've let something bigger than yourself take over."

Great, I thought, I believe that, but I forget it in the midst of the sessions. How can I make sure I remember it? Art advised, "When you start to facilitate a session, write a big '?' with a circle around it on the pad of paper you keep with you." "What's that about?" I asked. "It's a reminder to ask yourself, 'How is a greater spirit present with me and with these people at this moment in time?'" he said.

I have observed that responding to this spirit is like being in "the zone" that athletes talk about. It's trusting that we can let go of our expectations and our need to control and let something better happen. It makes the work easier and more productive.

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BE AN AGENT OF HOPE

As you practice facilitating the process for your own group or others, maintain an observing, inquiring frame of mind: What deeper hopes are present among the participants? How is this situation creating an opportunity to pursue them? How shall we respond?

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How Great Decisions Get Made. 10 Easy Steps for Reaching Agreement on Even the Toughest Issues
How Great Decisions Get Made: 10 Easy Steps for Reaching Agreement on Even the Toughest Issues
ISBN: 0814407935
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 112
Authors: Don Maruska

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