Download - Facilitating workshops
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What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
Facilitating Stakeholder Workshops
1. Important Terms
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What are stakeholders?
• Anyone who can affect or be affected by a
decision or action
(after Freeman, 1984)
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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)
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2. Basics of Participation
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Different levels/types of participation in
community planning
The ladder of participation (Arnstein, 1969)
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Different levels/types of participation
The wheel of participation (Wilcox, 2003)
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Different levels/types of participation
Communication flows (Rowe & Frewer, 2000)
Facilitators Stakeholders
Facilitators Stakeholders
Facilitators Stakeholders
Communication
Consultation
Participation
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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
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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
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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
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Tools vs overall process
• Participation is
more than a
collection of tools
and methods for
engaging
stakeholders
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nvolved
What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
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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What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
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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What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
• 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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What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
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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What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
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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What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
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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What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
• 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
Incre
asin
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tra
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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
Incre
asin
gly
tra
cta
ble
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
nvolved
What makes stakeholder participation
in environmental management work?
4. Planning & Facilitating Events
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4a. Process Design
Includes some material based on a Dialogue Matters course (Diana Pound), with help from Ros Bryce
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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)
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Goals
• 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?
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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?
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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?
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Will
• 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?
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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
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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?
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• 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
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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)
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Information gathering: opening out
• Brainstorming
• Metaplan
• Venn diagrams
• Listing
• Carousel
• Mapping and participatory GIS
• Conceptual modelling or mind-mapping
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Exploring: analysis
• Categorisation e.g. card sorting and Q
methodology
• Problem tree analysis or cause-effect mapping
• SWOT analysis
• Timelines
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Decision making: closing down
• Voting
• Ranking
• Prioritisation (e.g. sticky dots)
• Multi-Criteria Evaluation
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4b. Facilitation Tools & Techniques
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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
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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
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Overcoming our fears
• Increasing our skill level:
– Tools & techniques
– Getting experience
• Increasing our personal confidence and power:
developing “presence”
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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
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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?)
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Practical skills continued:
• Non-verbal feedback:
– Eye contact
– Nodding, smiling
– Focussed attention
– Value silence
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• 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
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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
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5. Deep dynamics of facilitation
Plan
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
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 warning signs of conflict
• Early signs of conflict you can detect in others?
Early warning signs of conflict
• 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
Appreciative Enquiry
• 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
Appreciative Enquiry
• How do you feel?!
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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