Peter Adler, head of the Keystone Center and a giant in the field of dispute resolution, recently published a great "credo for facilitators" that he first came up with some years ago. I really like his set of seven beliefs at the end of the credo:
 
"1. A GOOD FAITH CONTRACT.
 
We believe the job of the “facilitator” involves a three way good faith contract that must be honored by (a) those who are sponsoring or convening the process; (b) those who are serving as facilitators of the process; and (c) those who are participating in the facilitated process{...}
 
2. TRUSTWORTHINESS AND IMPARTIALITY.
 
We believe that the first duty of a facilitator is to be a servant of the group and the process. This requires trustworthiness and impartiality and a guarantee that all parties will be treated equally and fairly in the discussion or decision seeking process. Facilitators cannot advocate for one party’s point of view and must never participate in any process that is misrepresented as to its purpose or that is intended to circumvent legal processes. Sponsors and participants have the responsibility to help the facilitator maintain his/her impartiality by making them aware of instances in which they appear to be treating people unfairly.
 
3. INCLUSION AND PARTICIPATION.
 
We believe the job of the facilitator is to help groups have difficult and sometimes risky and far reaching conversations that will affect other people, including those who may not be at the table. Collaboration begins with inclusion and participation. While the ultimate responsibility for deciding who is and is not invited to participate in a particular process rests with the convener and sponsor, facilitators have a duty to advocate for the widest representation and fullest participation.
 
4. RESPECT FOR CULTURE.
 
We recognize that important meetings sometimes bring together people of different cultures, backgrounds and experience in public forums. We strive to design and conduct meetings that are sensitive to the cultural norms and expectations of the participants and their experiences in participating in public meetings. Understanding who will participate in meetings is therefore a critical component of process design.
 
5. CLARITY ABOUT OWNERSHIP AND DECISION MAKING.
 
We believe that sponsors and facilitators have a duty to group members to explain fully and completely (a) how decisions in the group will be made; (b) how any generated information will be used and who owns that information when the process is complete; and (c) where the groups activities and decisions will ultimately fit in the life of the issue under consideration. Hierarchy or other circumstances sometimes may mean that the final decision will not be made by the group; if so, this must be made clear from the beginning of the process.
 
6. BETTER POLITICS.
 
We recognize that process facilitation is ultimately a political act. By “political” we mean that group discussions are usually an attempt to improve the collective good, that they bring together people with different kinds of power, and that they ultimately involve the making of difficult decisions about who gets what, for what purposes, and under what conditions. As facilitators, we assume a role of trusted third party. Throughout all of our work, we strive to increase the group’s productivity, to help create decisions that are fair, efficient, stable, wise, and transparent, to create good “road maps” for the future, and where possible, to heal old hurts and restore good relations. To do these things, we may play different roles. Sometimes we organize. Sometimes we coach. Sometimes we plan.
 
7. THE FACILITATORS ROLE.
 
We believe that the role of the group facilitator can be significant and can help a group achieve great things. It is not a panacea, a way of life, a universal cure, or a therapy. Facilitation has limits, is often not appropriate, and can, when done badly, do tremendous damage. Facilitation therefore should not be done casually or assumed to be trivial. It carries serious responsibilities."
 
A lot of wisdom in there.

There’s a common expression that “two heads are better than one,” and that may often be the case. However, since we often bring groups together to work on resolving conflict, it’s also important to recognize when and why groups may fail at producing high-quality deliberations.

Two U Chicago scholars have released an interesting working paper on this issue, available here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1121400

Below is the paper’s abstract:
Many groups make their decisions through some process of deliberation, usually with the belief that deliberation will improve judgments and predictions. But deliberating groups often fail, in the sense that they make judgments that are false or that fail to take advantage of the information that their members have. There are four such failures. (1) Sometimes the predeliberation errors of group members are amplified, not merely propagated, as a result of deliberation. (2) Groups may fall victim to cascade effects, as the judgments of initial speakers or actors are followed by their successors, who do not disclose what they know. Nondisclosure, on the part of those successors, may be a product of either informational or reputational cascades. (3) As a result of group polarization, groups often end up in a more extreme position in line with their predeliberation tendencies. Sometimes group polarization leads in desirable directions, but there is no assurance to this effect. (4) In deliberating groups, shared information often dominates or crowds out unshared information, ensuring that groups do not learn what their members know. All four errors can be explained by reference to informational signals, reputational pressure, or both. A disturbing result is that many deliberating groups do not improve on, and sometimes do worse than, the predeliberation judgments of their average or median member.

(Image by flickr user clagnut and used under creative commons license)

Thanks to WorkLifeBridge for including us on its resource page.  We're happpy to reciprocate and pleased to find another good source of information on collaboration, dispute resolution, and making life and work better for everyone.  

In their post Creepy Crawly Consensus, the authors of WorkLifeBridge direct their readers to some good consensus building resources.  See below for their recommendations and click here for the full post. 

Here are some resources and ideas to help you get the most out of your consensus decision-making process:

• Here are some step-by-step instructions for achieving consensus
• For a more detailed treatment, here is a handbook on consensus processes
• For an even more elaborate discussion, here are notes on consensus
• Finally, here is a Cornell University study on when managers should and shouldn’t use consensus

Ah ha!  Now I see that the prolific negotiation-guru, ADR queen, and mediation czar Diane Levin is a part of this dynamic group.  Diane -- one of the few people who make me feel as if I'm sitting around watching soap operas and eating bon bons all day.  Do you NEVER sleep my friend?

I recently discovered a terrific tool for mapping concepts and group discussions: Compendium. Compendium was designed with an eye toward the IBIS (Issue-Based Information System) approach to structuring and recording group conversations. These are typically conversations done with the goal building a better understanding of a complex problem and exploring ideas for tackling what emerges. (For a good introduction to this take on facilitation, I’d recommend Jeff Conklin’s >Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems.) That said, you’ll be able to find great uses for the software even without any background or interest in IBIS. As a small sample of what compendium does (don’t just go by this, there are better examples at Compendium’s website), here’s a brief snippet from a much larger (spanned several pages) Compendium-created map from a group conversation about planning a series of communities dialogues focused on the upcoming anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. Compendium’s keyboard shortcuts made it easy to record the information during the meeting (and project it via LCD), and its export features (ranging from a single jpg image to exporting a full set of hyperlinked web pages) made it easy to share the final record of the conversation. Best of all, Compendium is free and runs on most major platforms (PC, Mac, & Linux). You can learn more about and download the software at CompendiumInstitute.

Why diversity?  Uh . . . . because that's how life successfully evolved on planet earth?

Now a new study prepared by Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business and the Wellesley Centers for Women concludes that corporations benefit from the presence of women on the Board of Directors in Critical Mass on Corporate Boards: Why Three or More Women Enhance Governance.

(for the same reasons noted below, we also make pretty darn good mediators and settlement officers)

We find that women do make a difference in the boardroom. Women bring a collaborative leadership style that benefits boardroom dynamics by increasing the amount of listening, social support, and win-win problem-solving. Although women are often collaborative leaders, they do not shy away from controversial issues. Many of our informants believe that women are more likely than men to ask tough questions and demand direct and detailed answers. Women also bring new issues and perspectives to the table, broadening the content of boardroom discussions to include the perspectives of multiple stakeholders. Women of color add perspectives that broaden boardroom discussions even further.

How Many Women Constitute a Critical Mass on a Corporate Board?

The number of women on a board makes a difference. While a lone woman can and often does make substantial contributions, and two women are generally more powerful than one, increasing the number of women to three or more enhances the likelihood that women’s voices and ideas are heard and that boardroom dynamics change substantially. Women who have served alone and those who have observed the situation report experiences of lone women not being listened to, being excluded from socializing and even from some decision-making discussions, being made to feel their views represent a “woman’s point of view,” and being subject to inappropriate behaviors that indicate male directors notice their gender more than their individual contributions.

Adding a second woman clearly helps. When two women sit on a board, they tend to feel more comfortable than one does alone. Each woman can assure that the other is heard, not always by agreeing with her, but rather, by picking up on the topics she raises and encouraging the group to process them fully. Two women together can develop strategies for raising difficult and controversial issues in a way that makes other board members pay attention. But with two women, women and men are still aware of gender in ways that can keep the women from working together as effectively as they might, and the men from benefiting from their contributions.

The magic seems to occur when three or more women serve on a board together. Suddenly having women in the room becomes a normal state of affairs. No longer does any one woman represent the “woman’s point of view,” because the women express different views and often disagree with each other. Women start being treated as individuals with different personalities, styles, and interests. Women’s tendencies to be more collaborative but also to be more active in asking questions and raising different issues start to become the boardroom norm. We find that having three or more women on a board can create a critical mass where women are no longer seen as outsiders and are able to influence the content and process of board discussions more substantially.

Thanks to commercial arbitrator and mediator Deborah Rothman for circulating this report among her professional women friends!