Team Performance

Why Facilitators Need Deep Democracy

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Originally posted on www.DeepDemocracyUSA.com. Leia em português aqui. Obrigado, Regina Eggers Pazzanese, instrutora do Brazilian Deep Democracy, pela tradução! 

Image: Deposit Photo

After 30+ years as a facilitator, I thought I knew it all. When I went to new facilitation workshops, the techniques seemed repetitive. Then I discovered Lewis Deep Democracy. This unique methodology is built on humanistic values like respect for human dignity, choice, responsibility, authenticity, openness, learning, diversity, and inclusion. Many facilitation techniques advocate for similar values. Deep Democracy offers new and different ways of actualizing those values.

Here are five reasons why facilitators need Deep Democracy.

All Voices Matter

As a facilitator, I believe that all voices matter.

The High Cost of Small Conflict

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Deep Democracy Debate Tool drawn by Patricia Tiffany Angkiriwang

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn.

By the time I entered the room, the two sides were locked into position. One side was convinced that they had the answer. The other side wouldn’t budge from their belief that they were right. Each side was making their points, logically explaining the benefits of their approach, but the tension was rising and the frustration was growing. It looked like the meeting would end without resolution.

In the United States, polarization is on the rise. We tend to think of polarization in political terms, but the behavior extends to the workplace. When faced with a different point of view, people often dig into their perspectives.

100+ Tried & True Problem-Solving Tools

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Too many leaders choose the wrong tool for the problem at hand. Our infographic, “What’s Your Problem,” explains the four different types of problems leaders face. Once you’ve read it, you may be left thinking: OK, I know what kind of problem I have. What tool do I use?

In this post, we share over 100 tried-and-true problem-solving tools. These are effective and elegant methods that you can use to address the four types of problems.

Simple Problem-Solving Tools

SOP from UCLA.

Simple problems have easily seen cause and effect relationships. Your job is to assess the facts, categorize the facts, and then apply the appropriate best practice.

Are You Solving the Right Problem?

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Problems come in many shapes and sizes. Some are small (“I can’t find space for my 2pm meeting”). Others are large (“I can’t get forty coalition members to agree on goals”). All have the capacity to drive you nuts, especially if you’re not solving problems using the right tools.

If You Have a Hammer, Everything is a Nail

Once you find techniques that work, it’s tempting to use them over and over again. Maybe you’ve had great success using Gantt charts. You might like performance charting, root cause analysis, or group dialogue sessions. Perhaps business ecosystem maps rock your world.

The Employees’ Wishlist: Three Things Employees Wish Managers Would Do

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Power of networks

Your employees need you. But not in the way you think.

Leadership is no longer about being the center of decision-making, expertise, and problem solving. Instead, today’s leaders work in such complex, variable environments that they simply can’t be as central as they have in the past. If they take on this role, they risk becoming bottlenecks and getting in the way of progress. Today’s leaders need to do things differently.

Collaborating Across Borders: Five Keys to Creating Powerful Partnerships

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Collaborating across borders. If this dog and cat can do it, so can we. Image by Hannah W on flickr.

Several weeks ago, a distraught vice president called. His organization had just been restructured and he had just received ownership for two new divisions. He needed to integrate the new divisions quickly and help them collaborate with his existing organization.

The problem was that he had inherited a group of people who didn’t understand why the change had happened. They were struggling to comprehend why they should redesign their processes to accommodate the new organization chart. In addition, they were used to working alone and saw no reason to collaborate with their new peers.

Is your strategy stuck in the 20th century?

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