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      KEYZINE: An e-zine for LEADERS:
     ABOUT THE PEOPLE PART OF BUSINESS
                 Volume 27, June 2003
    Publisher: © Key Associates, 2003
           http://www.mkkey.com

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This Issue: On "Facilitative Leadership"

Contents:

What's Hot in Leadership
Maintaining Yourself as a Leader
Frequently Asked Questions from Leaders
Educational Opportunities
Useful Websites
Articles/Publications

"Your job is to facilitate and illuminate what
is happening. Interfere as little as possible.
interference, however brilliant, creates a
dependency on the leader."
- John Heider

"As children, we are a series of question marks.
As adults, we grow up and our language is filled
with periods."
- Unknown

"The right word may be effective, but no word
was ever as effective as the rightly timed pause."
- Mark Twain

"Facilitation is the provision of opportunities,
resources, encouragement, and support for the
group to achieve its aim, and to do this through
enabling the group to take control and
responsibility for the way it proceeds."
- Trevor Bentley

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WHAT'S HOT IN LEADERSHIP
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Being concerned with HELPING PEOPLE
HELP THEMSELVES.

Pushing DECISION-MAKING to the lowest level
possible.

Sharing CORE VALUES, PRINCIPLES, and
GROUP AGREEMENTS as a basis for action.

Protecting IDEAS of all and VALUING DIFFERENCES.

GUIDING not CONTROLLING, ENABLING
not DOING FOR.

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MAINTAINING YOURSELF AS A LEADER
***************************************
The most powerful tool you bring to work is "yourself."
You use your experience and insight to help others
find their way. This may mean holding back when
your urge is to "do it for them"-i.e., to take over
their problem or give them advice on how you would
handle it. The key here is effective "questions."

- What is happening now?
- What is working well?
- What would a successful outcome be?
- What have you tried before and with what results?
- Can you see ways that you may be contributing to the problem?
- What do we need to solve this problem?
- What criteria will you use to make a decision?
- How might I assist you?

This is the basic formula for COACHING.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
**************************************
How to learn from mistakes and not kill the messenger.

Try a DEBRIEF--ask what happened, what did we
learn, and what will we do differently next time?
The Army calls it AAR (After Action Review).

When a team or an individual is floundering,
what do I do?

Ask a clarifying question. "What are you trying
to accomplish?" Then think through with them,
"What method, tool or process will help us
achieve that aim?"

How do I pull my management team together?

Like any other team, they will profit from CPR--
a culture of Commitment to the work, clear Purpose,
and focus on Relationships. Ask them about
ideal team experiences of the past, and use these
models to craft a "team agreement (new term for
ground rules)." Always push communication in the
direction of "open," and provide the environment
to speak truthfully (albeit kindly) without harm.

"This touchy-feely soft stuff is not my style.
Are you telling me that there is no place for
taking charge?"

Absolutely not. There is a continuum of intervention,
ranging from gentle facilitative through coaching
through being persuasive to being highly directive.
In ambiguous situations, I generally start at the
gentle end of the intervention continuum and
move up as needed. Here's the range:

Non-intervention
Silence
Nonverbal
Question to Clarify
Descriptive Feedback
Evaluative Feedback
Question to Move
Debrief
Reframe
Teach/Train
Share Your Idea
Make Suggestions
Guide
Mediate
Direct*
Seek Third Party Intervention

In situations where people and relationships are
in danger of being harmed, I jump immediately to
the Directive mode.*

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EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
**************************************
For a long time, Key Associates used the
Facilitation course as the model for learning
how to lead:
http://www.mkkey.com/Key%20Associates/ArtofFacilitation.htm

Now, with the help of leaders, we have created
a five-day course, divisible into modules, just
for Leadership skills:
http://www.mkkey.com/Key%20Associates/TheNewLeadership.htm

Our government sees the value of facilitative leadership
and has an institute within the US Office of Personnel Management
http://www.leadership.opm.gov/content.cfm?cat=FL

Home course on the Facilitative Leader
http://www.csudh.edu/Extension/Online%20Learning/facilitativeLeader.html

Roger M. Schwarz is the premier writer re: facilitation
http://www.workteams.unt.edu/conf/facilit/skilledf.htm
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OTHER USEFUL WEBSITES
**************************************
Facilitation tools, featuring Guided Dialogue
http://www.facilitativeleader.com/m_home.htm

Do you have the skills of a facilitative leader?
http://www.pdtrainers.com/facilita.htm

Another e-zine that teaches facilitative leadership
http://www.common-goals.com/five.html

**************************************
ARTICLES/PUBLICATIONS
**************************************

ASTD. How to Facilitate, Alexandria, VA: ASTD
June, 1994.

Bentley, Trevor. Facilitation: Providing Opportunities
for Learning. London: McGraw-Hill, 1994.

Bolton, R. People Skills. New York: Touchstone,
1979.

Cohen, Herb. You Can Negotiate Anything.
New York: Citadel Press, 1980.

Crum, Thomas F. The Magic of Conflict. NY:
Simon & Schuster, 1987.

Doyle, M. and Straus, D. How to Make Meetings
Work. New York: Jove Books, 1976.

Fisher, Roger, and Ury, William. Getting to Yes.
New York: Penguin Books, 1981.

Hart, Lois B. Thoughtless Facilitation: An
Instructor’s Manual for Facilitation Training.
Amherst, MA: Human Resource Development Press,
1991.

Heider, John. The Tao of Leadership. Aldershot:
Wildwood House, 1986.

Mayer, Richard J. Conflict Management:
The Courage to Confront. Columbus: Battelle Press,
1989.

Neuhauser, Peg C. Tribal Warfare in Organizations.
New York: Harper & Row Press, 1988.

Parker, Glenn M. Cross-Functional Teams:
Working with Allies, Enemies, and Other Strangers.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1984.

Pfiefer and Jones’ Annuals for Developing Human
Resources (all years have good exercises for teams and facilitators).

Phillips, R.C. The Art of Managing Differences: Part I:
Levels of Conflict. Presentation to the Michigan
Construction User Council, October 20, 1987.

Reddy, W. Brendan. Intervention Skills. San Diego:
Pfeiffer, 1994.

Rees, Fran. How to Lead Work Teams. San Diego:
Pfeiffer, 1991.

Ross, M.B. Coping with Conflict: The 1982 Annual
for Facilitators, Trainers, and Consultants. University
Associates, 1982, pp. 135-139.

Ryan, Kathleen D., and Oestreich, Daniel K. Driving
Fear Out of the Workplace. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991.

Schein, E.H. Process Consultation: Its Role in
Organizational Development (Vol. 1, 2^nd ed.)
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1988.

Scholtes, Peter. The Team Handbook. Madison, WI:
Joiner Associates, Inc., 1988.

Schwarz, Roger M. The Skilled Facilitator:
Practical Wisdom for Developing Effective Groups.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline. New York:
Doubleday, 1990.

Senge, Peter M. The Leader’s New Work: Building
Learning Organizations. Sloan Management Review,
Fall 1990, 7-23.

Van Gundy, Arthur. Idea Power. New York.
AMACOM, 1992.

Varney, G. Building Productive Teams. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1989, pp 40-41, 68-77.

Walton, Richard E. Managing Conflict: Interpersonal
Dialogue and Third Party Roles. Massachusetts:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1987.

Weaver, Richard G. & Farrell, John D. Managers as
Facilitators. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1997.