An article in The Globe and Mail’s management perspective section today addressed the need for trained facilitators. It is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently after having been invited to a meeting meant to address a conflict between two parties that seem to growing further apart as the weeks go by.
Knowing that no one would be there trained to facilitate the meeting I began to think about how quickly and easily things would degenerate. Deborah Macklin is quoted in the G&M article saying, “People find themselves in the position of facilitator with very little knowledge about how…to lead a group to the desired result. They end up starting the meeting and then waiting for the group to manage itself.”
As someone with a stake in the outcome and someone who understands facilitation I know how difficult it is for a group to manage itself. My refusal to attend a meeting without a skilled facilitator might seem harsh or critical to a group trying to resolve an internal conflict. What I really want to do is protect all of us and move towards our desired result.
It is important for a facilitator to be objective or at least state his or her biases. It is so easy for a meeting to become a search for blame attempting to answer the question, “Who is at fault here?” A skilled facilitator can move a group towards peaceful resolution without fault finding or blaming. The point of conflict resolution isn’t for each side to try and convince the other side that they were right and to walk through a history of their actions. The point is to restore peace.
I’m all for a focused conversation to resolve conflict. It’s not the conversation that concerns me. It’s the focus.
