Facilitating workshops

www.see.leeds.ac.uk/sustainableuplands

ustainable Uplands Learning to manage future change nvolved

What makes stakeholder participation

in environmental management work?

Facilitating Stakeholder Workshops

1. Important Terms

ustainable Uplands Learning to manage future change

What are stakeholders?

• Anyone who can affect or be affected by a

decision or action

(after Freeman, 1984)

What is stakeholder participation?

• A process where stakeholders (e.g. individuals,

groups and organisations) choose to take an

active role in making decisions that affect them

(After Wandersman 1981; Wilcox 2003; Rowe et al. 2004)

2. Basics of Participation

Different levels/types of participation in

community planning

The ladder of participation (Arnstein, 1969)

Different levels/types of participation

The wheel of participation (Wilcox, 2003)

Different levels/types of participation

Communication flows (Rowe & Frewer, 2000)

Facilitators Stakeholders

Communication

Consultation

Participation

Why engage stakeholders?

• Participation is increasingly embedded in policy

for the normative & pragmatic reasons discussed

• A democratic right e.g. Aarhus Convention

• Higher quality and more durable decisions

Challenges and disillusionment

• Empowering marginalised may interact with existing

power structures to cause unintended consequences

• Group dynamics may create “dysfunctional consensus”

• Consultation fatigue as poorly run processes fail to

deliver change

Evidence for claims of participation?

• Few claims have been tested, but there is firm

evidence that effective participation can enhance:

• Quality of decisions: due to more comprehensive

information inputs

• Durability of decisions: due to stakeholder buy-in

• But, decision quality and durability are highly

dependant on the quality of the process leading

to them

Tools vs overall process

• Participation is

more than a

collection of tools

and methods for

engaging

stakeholders

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1. Start talking to people as soon as you can

• From concept to completion

• Early involvement leads to higher quality and more durable decisions

• Avoid raising false expectations: make sure there’s something to negotiate

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2. Make sure you’re talking to the right people

• The nature and legitimacy of outcomes is significantly affected by participant mix

• Lots of methods available now for “stakeholder analysis”

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• Design the process to the goals

• Identify goals with stakeholders

• Be prepared to negotiate and compromise

• Partnerships, ownership and active engagement in the process is more likely

3. Make sure you know what people want to talk about

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4. Be flexible: base level of participation & methods on your context & objectives

• Communicate e.g. information

dissemination via leaflets or the mass media, hotlines and public meetings

• Consult e.g. consultation documents,

opinion polls and referendums, focus groups and surveys

• Participate e.g. citizen’s juries, consensus

conferences, task-forces and public meetings with voting

• Tailor your methods to context

• Manage power

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5. Get a facilitator

• The outcome of a participatory process is more sensitive to the manner in which it is conducted than the tools that are used

• Don’t underestimate the power of investing in a good facilitator to bring people together and deliver high quality outcomes

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6. Put local and scientific knowledge on an equal footing

• Science can help people make more informed decisions

• Local knowledge can question assumptions, and perhaps lead to more rigorous science

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• Decisions based on a combination of local and scientific knowledge may by more robust due to more comprehensive information inputs

3. Overcoming barriers to participation

Barriers to participation

Practical: lack of time, money, skills

Stakeholder fatigue, apathy based on negative former experiences

Fear of losing control, unwanted/biased outcomes

World view (or epistemology):

• Reductionists, in search of universal truth, find it hard to value local knowledge and multiple perspectives

• If you know what’s right, why consult?

• Often related to disciplinary background, but more about the way people construct & perceive knowledge

Barriers to participation

Practical: lack of time, money, skills

Stakeholder fatigue, apathy based on negative former experiences

Fear of losing control, unwanted/biased outcomes

World view (or epistemology):

• Reductionists, in search of universal truth, find it hard to value local knowledge and multiple perspectives

• If you know what’s right, why consult?

• Often related to disciplinary background, but more about the way people construct & perceive knowledge

Overcoming barriers

Deeper issues may take generations to change

But most of these are tractable issues

Practical – we can make time/money and good

practice skills available

Stakeholder scepticism: replacing bad with good

practice, negative with positive experiences

Decision-maker scepticism: good practice can set

boundaries (avoid raising false expectations via

participation if no alternatives) and minimise bias

The key: identifying, spreading and facilitating

good practice

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4. Planning & Facilitating Events

4a. Process Design

Includes some material based on a Dialogue Matters course (Diana Pound), with help from Ros Bryce

What is important in planning an event?

The ‘GROW’ Model*

Reality Where are you now?

Options Possible options?

actionactionaction

Will What will you do?

Goal What is the issue to be addressed?

* Sir John Whitmore, Coaching for Performance: GROWing People, Performance and Purpose (Nicholas Brealey, 2002)

• What do you want to achieve?

• What do you want to change?

• How will you know if you’ve been successful?

• When do you want to have achieved your goal?

Reality

• What is happening at the moment? How have

you verified this is true?

• What are you achieving at present?

• What action have you taken on this so far?

What were the effects of this action?

Options

• What actions could you take to move forward?

• What strategies have worked before in similar

circumstances?

• If no barriers or limitations existed, what would

you do?

• Which step will give the best result?

• Advantages/disadvantages of this step?

• Which option will you work on first?

• What are you going to do?

• When are you going to do it?

• What help do you need?

• Who will you involve?

• What might prevent you from taking this step?

• How can you overcome this?

What is important in planning an event?

Understanding the situation

• Purpose

• Outputs

• Stakeholders

• Timeframes

Process plan

•Timetable

•No. of workshops

•Key tasks

•Action plan

Event plan

•Timing

•Purpose

•Outputs

•Sessions

Task plan

•Purpose

•Questions

•Groupings

•Techiques

Practicalities

•The team

•The venue

•The tools

Event planning

• What is the purpose of the process/event?

• What are the outcomes you want?

• What are the outcomes stakeholders want?

• Who are the stakeholders?

• How does the event link to the wider project,

process or your organisation’s goals?

• How will you keep people engaged?

• Make a facilitation plan

– Timings (include buffer – things you can skip)

– Who will do what when?

– Equipment list

– Session/activity titles (for participants’ agenda)

– Detailed methods under each title

– Try out unfamiliar methods first

Structuring an event

Choosing techniques

• Be clear about outcomes and outputs required

• Alter group size depending on no. participants,

tasks to be completed, amount of in-depth

discussion needed and the level of conflict

• Self-facilitating small groups or many

facilitators?

• Start with opening out techniques

• Explore/discuss, and if necessary close down (rank, prioritise etc)

Information gathering: opening out

• Brainstorming

• Metaplan

• Venn diagrams

• Listing

• Carousel

• Mapping and participatory GIS

• Conceptual modelling or mind-mapping

Exploring: analysis

• Categorisation e.g. card sorting and Q

methodology

• Problem tree analysis or cause-effect mapping

• SWOT analysis

• Timelines

Decision making: closing down

• Voting

• Ranking

• Prioritisation (e.g. sticky dots)

• Multi-Criteria Evaluation

4b. Facilitation Tools & Techniques

Why facilitate? • Efficient: more discussed in less time

• Impartiality

• Clarity

• A helpful atmosphere

• Appropriate techniques

• More people have a say

• No organisation or individual in control or veto

• The outcome is open

What do you fear most?

Group challenges:

• Dominating people, big egos

• Quiet or unconfident people

• Diverse groups: different ways of approaching an issue, different backgrounds and values

From within:

• Lack of confidence

• Lack of experience

• Too few tools & techniques: no plan B

Overcoming our fears

• Increasing our skill level:

– Tools & techniques

– Getting experience

• Increasing our personal confidence and power:

developing “presence”

Interpersonal facilitation skills:

• Empathetic

• Capable of building rapport with group and

maintaining positive group dynamics

• Handling dominating or offensive individuals

• Encourage participants to question assumptions

and re-evaluate entrenched positions

• Get the most out of reticent individuals

• Humble, open to feedback

• Perceived as impartial, open to multiple

perspectives and approachable

Practical facilitation skills:

• Active listening and understanding

• Enable people to clarify their thoughts

• Let people know their opinions are valued

• Help people go beyond facts to meanings

• Help people to ‘own’ their problems, take responsibility for them and think of solutions

• Giving momentum and energy

• Ensuring everyone has an opportunity to input

• Making an impartial record of the discussion

• Writing clearly, managing paper (assistant?)

Practical skills continued:

• Non-verbal feedback:

– Eye contact

– Nodding, smiling

– Focussed attention

– Value silence

• Verbal feedback:

– Sounds, short phrases

– Clarifying details

– Encouraging/probing: asking for more information

– Open (not closed) questions

– Summarising: to confirm correct interpretation

– Reframing:

• Technique to move people from a negative stance to discuss a positive way forward

• Acknowledge what has been said

• Ask an open question that seeks to get at the heart of the problem

• Involve others in group in solving the problem

Useful Tricks • Ground rules: agree at outset, refer back if need

• Parking space: park now and deal with later

• Open space: adapt to participant needs/interests

• Get an opinion leader to introduce the event: the

group may be more likely to trust you by proxy

• Group mirroring – bring them with you:

– Empathise with group feeling, start there

– Keep smiling, positive & energised tone of voice,

pace, increasingly open body language

5. Deep dynamics of facilitation

Identity & roles

Dealing with conflict

Power & influence

Appreciative inquiry

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385131/Russia-Victory-Day-Female-police-cadets-20-000-parade.html

Identity & Roles

Exercise in pairs:

• Draw a large circle on a piece of paper

• Make a pie chart with each segment representing

different aspects of your identity – who you are e.g.

teacher, researcher, dad...

• Make the size of each segment proportional to the

importance of that part of your identity

• Swap with a neighbour and discuss

• Now draw the same pie chart again, this time

making the size of the pieces proportional to the

amount of time you spend being that part of you are

(you can add/remove segments if need be)

1. We are typically more conscious of the parts of our identify that are different to those around us

• e.g. if you are from a different country, older/married etc.

2. We use different parts of who we are in

different situations e.g. when we are in

different groups of people

• We often do this without thinking about it

• We are not changing our identity – we’re just

drawing on different parts of ourselves to adopt

different roles

3. This has implications for group dynamics

• Groups take on their own identity – as a

facilitator be aware of different identities within

the group.

• For example:

– an individual you interview may act differently and say

very different things in a group

– and they may do and say different things again if you

put them in a another group

4. In conflicts, people slip into rehearsed

opposing roles that prevent them listening or

learning

Avoiding conflict

Early warning signs of conflict:

• First, be aware of your own feelings

• Early signs of conflict you can detect in yourself?

Early warning signs of conflict

• Early signs of conflict you can detect in yourself?

• Anxiety, dread, frustration, anger

• Irrational thoughts e.g. “they don’t like me”, “it is

going to fail”

• Behaving out of character e.g. nervous checking

of things, working faster

• Exhibiting high or low power characteristics that

are out of role e.g. becoming bossy or submissive

• Early signs of conflict you can detect in others?

• Cold, distant, withdrawn

• Withholding confidences or ideas

• Closing body language

• Threats and offhand comments (even as jokes)

• Argumentative, not agreeing, blaming

• Moralising, intellectualising

• Silence, passivity

Avoiding conflict

• Can building rapport / mutual understanding help

avoid conflict?

• Brainstorm: how can you build rapport (do’s and

don’ts)

Power & influence

Group discussion

• How can you identify those in a group with more

or less power?

• What signs can you look for in yourself or others

to identify high or low rank?

How much power do you possess?

• There are four types of power you can possess:

1. situational

2. social

3. personal

4. transpersonal

Situational Power

• Role in formal hierarchy

• Seniority

• Expertise or experience

• Access to decision makers

Social Power

• Race or ethnicity

• Gender/ orientation

• Age

• Class

• Profession

• Wealth

• Education level

• Health/physical ability

• Social network

• Marital status/ children

• Appearance or

attractiveness

• Religious affiliation

• Title (e.g. Dr)

Personal Power

• Self awareness

• Self confident and

assertive

• Charisma

• Strength of character

• Emotional maturity

• Ability to empathise

• Ability to survive

adversity

• Life experience

• Ability to communicate

and influence others

• Integrity and honesty

• Creativity

• Positive and honest

estimation of your

worth and abilities

• Easy to get on with, so

can build networks

• Build others up

Transpersonal Power

• Connection to something larger than yourself

• Spirituality or faith (not religion)

• Ability to move beyond or forgive past hurts

• Freedom from fear

• Service to an unselfish vision

You may not be able to change your situational

power if you’re at the bottom of the

organisation’s hierarchy

But you may be able to increase your power in

other ways, especially your personal and

transpersonal power.

What power do you already possess, and how

can you increase your power?

Fill in questionnaire

• Individually

• Then pair up with someone (preferably who you

know) and swap notes

• Questions for you to both answer at the end of

the sheet

Appreciative Enquiry

• Turns problem-solving on its head

• Focus on rediscovering and reorganising the

good rather than problem solving

• Process of sharing success stories from the past

and present, asking positive questions in pairs

• Conceive and plan the future on the basis of the

successes and strengths that are identified

• Can include everyone in change/future planning

• Pair up with someone

• Ask them to tell you a story about one of their

greatest successes

• Get them to tell you right from the start, with a

beginning, middle and end, like a story

• Prompt them to tell you why they were so

pleased, how they felt and draw out the positives

• How do you feel?!

Reading

• Reed MS (2008) Stakeholder participation for

environmental management: a literature review.

Biological Conservation 141: 2417–2431

• Reed MS, Graves A, Dandy N, Posthumus H, Hubacek

K, Morris J, Prell C, Quinn CH, Stringer LC (2009) Who’s

in and why? Stakeholder analysis as a prerequisite for

sustainable natural resource management. Journal of

Environmental Management 90: 1933–1949

Facilitating workshops

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