Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Resolving stubborn, intractable conflicts requires a new approach. This book introduces transformative facilitation, which succeeds not by getting people to collaborate but by removing obstacles and letting them find their own path. People today face increasing complexity and decreasing control. They need to work with more people from across more divides. But the traditional ways of advancing--subsuming individual interests to the good of the whole, or providing total autonomy for all stakeholders to work out their own solution--aren't adequate to resolving these difficult situations. What's needed is a different approach. Transformative facilitation doesn't choose either approach: it cycles back and forth between them. The facilitator pays careful attention to what is going on in the group and decides which approach will work best at any given moment. It is not a way of leading or managing a group: it is a way of enabling the group to work out for themselves how they can transform their situation. Adam Kahane describes precisely what the facilitator needs to watch for and how to cycle between different aspects of each approach. This book is for anyone who helps people collaborate in any setting with groups of any size. Not only is this method a way to facilitate breakthroughs, it is a breakthrough in itself.
Synopsis
This book introduces a new approach to solving any stubborn, intractable conflict, based on the author's experiences bringing people together in international hot spots like South Africa, Columbia, India, and more. People today face increasing complexity and decreasing control. They need to work with more people across more divides. But the traditional ways of advancing--subsuming individual interests to the good of the whole, or providing total autonomy for all stakeholders to work out their own solution--aren't adequate to resolving these difficult situations.
Drawing on his experiences working with Black people and white people in post-apartheid in South Africa, First Nations people and the government in Canada, multiple stakeholders in war-torn Columbia, and many more, Kahane describes what he calls transformative facilitation. It combines the two approaches, cycling back and forth between them. The facilitator pays careful attention to what is going on in the group and decides which approach will work best at any given moment.
Adam Kahane describes precisely what the facilitator needs to watch for and how to manage the delicate balance between a focus on the collective and a focus on specific stakeholder needs. This book is for anyone who helps people collaborate in any setting. Not only does it offer a way to facilitate breakthroughs, it is a breakthrough in itself.
Synopsis
Making progress on complex problematic situations requires a new approach to working together: transformative facilitation, a structured and creative process for removing the obstacles to fluid forward movement. It is becoming less straightforward for people to move forward together. They face increasing complexity and decreasing control. They need to work with more people from across more divides. In such situations, the most common ways of advancing--some people telling others what to do, or everyone just doing what they think they need to--aren't adequate. What is a better way?
One better way is through facilitating. But the most common approaches to facilitating--bossy vertical directing from above or collegial horizontal accompanying from alongside--aren't adequate. They often leave the participants frustrated and yearning for breakthrough.
This book describes a new approach: transformative facilitation. It doesn't choose either the bossy vertical or the collegial horizontal approach: it cycles back and forth between them. Rather than forcing or cajoling, the facilitator removes the obstacles that stand in the way of people contributing and connecting equitably. It enables people to bring all of themselves to making a difference.
This book is for anyone who helps people work together to transform their situation, be it a professional facilitator, a manager, consultant, coach, chairperson, organizer, mediator, stakeholder, or friend. It offers a broad and bold vision of the contribution that facilitation can make to helping people collaborate to make progress.