The Integration of Ideas and Energy

I've been a cooperative process consultant since 1987. Early in my career it became apparent to me that in the community context you need to be able to work with both thoughts and emotions. Neither alone is sufficient to create and sustain healthy group dynamics.

Ever since that insight I've been wrestling with how best to integrate these two essential ingredients into a plenary cake mix that will reliably produce something both palatable and nutritious. Let me describe the progression:

1. Stonewalling

While there remain a lot of intentional communities who are not resolved about the need to work explicitly with energy, I'm happy to report that their number is dwindling. Mainly because the rational-only approach simply doesn't work. It polarizes half the group and leads to brittle decisions. I think the only thing that sustains this antediluvian idea is paralysis about how to work effectively with energy. It calls for a level of personal awareness and a communication skill set that are typically not screened for in membership, and the way forward can be bumpy. 

In fairness to groups in this muddle, the skills needed to work effectively with thoughts are completely different from the skills needed to work effectively with energy, and it can be a challenge finding or developing people who are ambidextrous.

2. Separate But Equal

More subtle is what I style the Plessy v Ferguson approach where the group offers both business meetings (for the product oriented) and heart circles (for the relationship oriented)—thereby officially acknowledging the need for energy work. While there is a tendency to style these two separate offerings as equally valuable (whence my reference to the 1896 Supreme Court ruling), in fact, they rarely are treated that way, and the integration of the two is left largely to the imagination. (The people needing exposure to the energetic information often don't attend those sessions, and the product of the heart circles does not inform the business meetings. Stalemate.)

Just as the 1954 Brown v The Board of Education Supreme Court ruling exposed the fallacy of Plessy v Ferguson, I'm here to tell you the money is in figuring out how to integrate these two precious elements into all plenaries, where the one complements the other.

3. An Issue's Journey 

That inspired me to develop the concept of An Issue's Journey, a sequence that could serve as a blueprint for productively working through a generic issue from start to finish. This was my initial attempt, back in the late '90s:

Step 1: Presentation of the Issue (What are we talking about? What are trying to accomplish on this topic?)

Step 2: Questions (Did everyone understand the Presentation? Let's make sure everyone is on the same bus.)

Step 3: Discussion (What does a good response to this issue need to taken into account?)

Step 4: Proposal Generating (What responses best balance the factors identified in the previous step?)

Step 5: Decision (Are we satisfied that what we've come up with is good enough?)

Step 6: Implementation (Who will do what, by when, and with what budget?)

While this articulation did a decent job of explaining why you should never start with proposals, it didn't get at the energy/ideation dichotomy very well. Gradually it occurred to me that there needed to be an explicit invitation to welcome strong energy if that was in the room (it isn't always, but when it is there needed to be a place to open it up and hold it). My thought (circa 2014) was to include it in Step 3, suggesting that if anyone wanted an opportunity to make a full-throated pitch for why a factor mattered to them, they would be given 1-2 minutes on the soap box to do so.

This didn't quite answer the need, so I kept tinkering… which lead a new-improved model that I trotted out a couple years later.

4. An Issue's Journey 2.0

Step 1: Presentation of the Issue (What are we talking about? What are trying to accomplish on this topic?)

Step 2: Questions (Did everyone understand the Presentation? Let's make sure everyone is on the same bus.)

Step 2a: Clearing the Air (Are there unresolved tensions in relation to this issue? If so, let's deal with them here.)

Step 3: Identifying Factors (What does a good response to this issue need to taken into account? What common values do we need to keep in mind? This is an expansive phase, casting the net.) 

Step 4: Proposal Generating (What responses best balance the factors identified in the previous step? This is a contractive phase—advocacy is over; now we're looking for bridging.)

Step 5: Decision (Are we satisfied that what we've come up with is good enough?)

Step 6: Implementation (Who will do what, by when, and with what budget?)

I added 2a (instead of renumbering 1-7) because this step isn't always needed—though if it is, then it needs to happen early. The three key steps in this sequence are 2a, 3, and 4. Each requires a different container and quality of participation, and they need to be undertaken in this order.

This was closer to what I wanted, but I found the level of engagement in Clearing the Air to be uneven. Some spoke from the heart while others treated it as a platform for analysis or simply as a way to insert an early pitch for their preferred solution and it was clunky to manage, which brought me to my latest incarnation, that I test drove this past summer…

5. An Issue's Journey 3.0

Step 1: Presentation of the Issue (What are we talking about? What are trying to accomplish on this topic?)

Step 2: Questions (Did everyone understand the Presentation? Let's make sure everyone is on the same bus.)

Step 3: Laying Out the Field (Is there anything you want the group to know about how this issue touches you? We are looking for statements from the heart. Everyone gets one chance at the mic. We are not looking for dialog, judgments, or proposed solutions at this stage. If unresolved tensions surface, we'll deal with them as we go.) 

Step 4: Identifying Factors (What does a good response to this issue need to taken into account? What common values are in play?) 

Step 5: Proposal Generating (What responses best balance the factors identified in the previous step?)

Step 6: Decision (Are we satisfied that what we've come up with is good enough?)

Step 7: Implementation (Who will do what, by when, and with what budget?)

My early experiments with this reconfiguration have been encouraging. The sharing manifested in Laying Out the Field has included strong feelings and also tenderness that has previously not been widely disclosed, and has helped to establish a nuanced understanding of what matters to people before we get into problem solving. To be fair, people still try to sneak in ideas about solutions, which I have to gently yet firmly set aside, but there's a learning curve with any new process and I try to breathe through it.

While it may not be heaven, I reckon I'm getting closer all the time. 

Key Facilitative Skills: Trusting the Force

As a professional facilitator for more than three decades, I've had ample opportunity to observe which skills make the most difference. As a facilitation trainer since 2003, I've also collected plenty of data about which lessons are the most challenging for students to digest. Taken all together, I've assembled a series of blog posts on the facilitation skills I consider to be both the hardest to master and the most potent for producing productive meetings. They will all bear the header Key Facilitative Skills and will be a distillation of where the heavy lifting is done.

This is the final segment in the series. 

Here are the headlines of what covered in this series:

I. Riding Two Horses: Content and Energy

II. Working Constructively with Emotions

III. Managing the Obstreperous

IV. Developing Range: Holding the Reins Only as Tightly as the Horses Require

V. Semipermeable Membranes: Welcoming Passion While Limiting Aggression

VI. Creating Durable Containers for Hard Conversations

VII. Walking the Feedback Talk

VIII. Sis Boom Bang

IX. Projecting Curiosity in the Presence of Disagreement

X. Distinguishing Weird (But Benign) from Seductive (Yet Dangerous)

XI. Eliciting Proposals that Sing

XII. Becoming Multi-tongued

XIII. Not Leaving Product on the Table

XIV. Sequencing Work Productively

XV. Trusting the Force

• • •

One the most important skills that a facilitator can develop is their intuition—the sense of what to do in a given situation, even when the rational pathway to that choice is obscure. I tell my students (with tongue only partially in cheek) that the difference between a good facilitator and great one is about 10 seconds. Don't tell me later what you should have done; you need to be able to find it in the dynamic moment.

Part of this, of course, is simply facilitating a lot of meetings, so that you have a large pattern library to draw from (when have I seen this before; what does this remind me of; what worked then; how is this the same and how is it different?).

It's also about opening yourself up to the unknown. You have to simultaneously do all you can to be prepared for the meeting, and then be willing go off script (which I style off-roading) when something emerges that you didn't anticipate—which happens, on average, 2-3 times a meeting. It requires being able to develop your spidey sense that alerts you that something important just happened, or is about to.

This can be subtle (not just a matter of someone jumping up and down and shouting, or sobbing in the corner). Perhaps it's a change in voice tone, body language, or pace that signals stress or vulnerability. It generally means it's time to slow things down and recognize that someone dropped into a deeper or more tender place that warrants attention. Often you won't know the meaning until the moment is explored. That is, you'll have to trust your sense that something potentially important has occurred and hold the group's focus to it without knowing where it will lead or whether it's even germane to the topic at hand. This is hard to do without the benefit of prior positive experiences reinforcing one's courage to do it again.

The metaphor I use is that you want to trust your intuition to the point where you're willing to step into the unknown without knowing where the floor is—believing that it will be there when your weight comes down, because you trust the Force.

This is, of course, not a beginner's skill. Newbies tend to hold onto their meeting plans like a lifeline, fearful of off-roading because there be dragons or sea monsters (or giant spiders—think of Tolkien's band of dwarves trying to navigate Mirkwood Forest on their way to the Lonely Mountain). On the journey to becoming a skilled facilitator, you need to make friends with your intuition, as an augment to your brain, not a substitute.

Fortunately, this is something you can practice when you're not the facilitator (and the stakes are lower). For example, any time you're in an informal conversation. Does something feel off, or missing? Is the energy discordant with the words? Is the conversation in laminar flow or turbulent? Those are all indicators that there is something roiling below the surface.

To be clear, even if your intuition is correct, that does not guarantee that the person you are asking to go deeper will be happy with the invitation. They may be invested in maintaining a boundary about what they share and reluctant to disclose more honestly. So you can knock on the door, but it may not open.

For that matter, the group may not welcome going off script on what may appear to be a side issue or a fishing expedition. The test will be whether it yields insights into the issue at hand and/or enhanced relationships among members. Unfortunately, you have to commit to the examination before you know whether the output will be deemed valuable.

Despite these impediments, I purposefully reserved this facilitative skill for last in my list of 15 because it has been my experience that a well-developed intuition—and the courage to act on it—is perhaps the most potent tool in the box. Virtually all of the breakthrough moments I have helped midwife as a facilitator the last four decades have come from my acting on intuition about what to do in a pivotal moment.

The obverse of embracing intuition is what I style paint-by-number facilitation, where the person (and group) develops rules and meeting structures which are strictly adhered to (if A happens, then do B), in the hope that there will be safety and reliability in walling off from the chaotic elements of emotions and intuition. While this is more accessible (and requires less personal growth work), I find this approach brittle and poorly adapted to emergent energy, and the messy, complex reality of who we are as humans.

Don't get me wrong. I think meetings should have structure, I think it's appropriate to define acceptable meeting behavior, and I think there are better ways to sequence how we work with issues. I also think getting stellar results requires being open to surprises and engaging with whatever is in the room—never mind how it got there, or the awkward way it may have been broached.

One of the most short-sighted concepts in facilitative thinking is the idea that information doesn't "count" or is in some sense illegitimate if it isn't delivered in a respectful or polite way. While I get it that it's easier to hear and work with opinions offered gently and with compassion, can you really afford to put someone (and their views) in the penalty box if the presentation was raw? I don't think so. You have to be willing to play with the dragons, rather than avoid them and hope you don't get burned. To accomplish that, you have to learn to trust the Force.

Observations from the Road

For the second time since the arrival of Covid I taking a trip to see my kids and grandkids in Las Vegas. The previous time, in May, I drove. This time I'm taking the train. 

While the train is my preferred mode of travel, this is the first time I've been on Amtrak in 19 months—the longest stretch I've gone trainless since the early '80s. To celebrate my reemergence on the rails, I'm doing this trip via a USA Rail pass, which allows me 10 segments within 30 days for a set price. Fall is a great time to travel (less extreme temperatures and beautiful colors) and I'm doing a giant circle: Minneapolis—New Orleans—Los Angeles—Las Vegas—Seattle—Minneapolis. While the centerpiece is 16 days in Sin City with my downline, I'll also enjoy six nights on the choo choo, rumbling through two time zones and as many climates as America has to offer.

In addition to seeing my kids (a high priority) this is a break from the busiest 12 months of consulting and teaching I've ever had. It turns out that pandemics are good for business. Who knew.

I. The eastbound Empire Builder

This train was full last Friday. While that complicated my ability to write reports (no room to spread out papers) I was glad for Amtrak, and we arrived into Chicago on time.

II. The southbound City of New Orleans

Ridership thinned out after Memphis and the ride into the Crescent City was spacious enough for me to start working on reports in the Lounge Car. About 20% of the homes on the north side of New Orleans sported blue tarps on their roof, marking residual damage from Hurricane Ida last month. Although you can't see the social damage, I encountered plentiful homeless encampments and sleeping bags in doorways.

I ate dinner last evening at a Japanese restaurant close to my hotel, and enjoyed teppanyaki. You needed to be masked and proof of vaccination to get in (or a recent negative Covid test) and they only placed customers at six of the 10 seats that fit around the grill, to allow for a modicum of social distancing. The other five at my table were a couple with their daughter, and childless couple. All four adults were fully engrossed in their cell phones while we awaited the start of the cooking show. I remember when eating out was more of a social occasion, but I'm not so sure it is any more.

III. The westbound Sunset Limited

There are just four ways to get from the Central time zone to the West Coast by train, and the Sunset Limited is the least used of these. It runs three times a week from New Orleans to Los Angeles, and I sought this route out because I've traveled it the least and it takes me through terrain I otherwise rarely see. Originating this morning in the steaming humidity of the Gulf Coast, we will traverse 2000 miles (half of it in Texas, from Beaumont to El Paso) to get to the City of Angels. As we proceed, the moisture will gradually be wrung out of the air until we're parched in the Sonora Desert of southern Arizona. 

Although there are still blue tarps on some of the houses in Lake Charles (courtesy of the double whammy that hit this city in August 2020, first Hurricane Delta and then Laura), I was impressed by how much the physical damage has been repaired. 

While the first two trains legs of this adventure both ran on time, we're already spectacularly behind schedule on this one, mainly due to freight train shenanigans. Good thing I'm not in a hurry.