For a diverse group to reach consensus, at least some of the participants – perhaps all of them – have to change their minds. They come into the room with differing, often fundamentally conflicting ideas about the challenges they face. They likely disagree on how to define problems, technical methods that should be used to explore potential solutions and the options that might meet their needs for an acceptable solution.

Most also arrive fearful that change will mean loss for them – of property, influence or benefits they now possess. That fear often comes through as deep suspicion of the motives of those who propose changes while also promising to protect the interests of other stakeholders. That suspicion may have been supported by the experience of past conflict and has thus become well entrenched.

Fear and suspicion typify one dimension of resistance as a powerful non-rational factor. But there are many other types of resistance. Experts may resist because an apparently sound rational analysis isn’t supported by scientific evidence that meets their standards. Others may miss a way to relate technical conclusions to their everyday experience and won’t accept a new concept until it “clicks” in terms of their own work or community life.

There is often a tension between rational problem-solving methods and the many non-rational factors that can be just as powerful in influencing decisions. Mediators need to address both levels in order to facilitate agreement, but it is not enough to work one-on-one with resistant participants.

The group members have to face this challenge jointly and find ways to examine and present ideas that encourage a willingness to change. It’s not a matter of one side “selling” a proposal to the others. That’s the hallmark of a more adversarial negotiation in which competing proposals or offers of settlement are debated.

In a collaborative setting, all the stakeholders must respond not only to one another’s interests but also to the particular cognitive demands of each participant. To do that, the group needs some understanding of the varied ways in which people become convinced that it is safe to change their minds and adopt an approach they had never before been willing to consider.

In Changing Minds, the psychologist Howard Gardner has provided a useful outline of the different types of evidence and presentation people need before they come to a moment when thinking can change.

He identifies seven factors that influence people to adopt new ideas and beliefs. Since change comes with great difficulty, he includes resistance as one of these factors. The ability to overcome resistance usually depends on the effect of the other six, all of which should reinforce each other and make it possible for a diverse group to achieve consensus. Here is a a quick overview of Gardner’s seven factors.

• Reason: The interest-based model of joint gains negotiation exemplifies the role of reasoning and rational analysis. A careful evaluation of options by use of objective criteria establishes a problem solution that is optimal. Those responsive to carefully constructed argument of this sort are likely to be persuaded to choose the highest scoring option, even if that contradicts earlier positions.

• Research: Change can also occur on the basis of evidence that a group finds convincing. It might be formally gathered scientific data or informally reported experience. Research is a primary method of supporting rational analysis, and together these are the most common methods of persuasion used in collaborative policy processes.

• Resonance: There are many times when rational analysis and supporting research don’t result in a change of thinking. The proposal “just doesn’t feel right.” In Gardener’s terms, it lacks resonance because it doesn’t touch a level of emotion that is usually necessary to win a commitment to change. Sometimes that feeling level is satisfied by reason and research, but it usually requires other elements too. Trust in an ally who accepts the idea could do it – or the change may occur in a way that is less conscious. The new idea seems to fit the situation or just “click” even if it goes against argument and data.

• Redescriptions: This is Gardener’s term for the representation of an idea in many different formats – verbal description, numerical calculation in a spreadsheet, or picturing through a chart, diagram or visual imagery. The point is that all the different forms of representing the idea need to reinforce each other to be convincing.

• Resources and Rewards: The availability of resources to carry out one alternative instead of another could tip the balance. Ideas that seem impractical because funding or staffing can’t be found may quickly lose their appeal, that is, be less convincing, less likely to change anyone’s mind.

• Real World Events: An election that shifts the balance of political power, a natural disaster, a surge or crash in financial markets, or the arrival of a revolutionary technology – are all examples of events that can be decisive in changing minds. They can disrupt expectations about the future and shift thinking about plans and actions. That happens because events like these can register with people on multiple levels at once, rational and emotional, conscious and unconscious and open possibilities that had never before been considered.

• Resistance: The refusal to consider a change is another critical factor. As people get older, they get attached to certain ideas and ways of doing things because they’ve been effective, or perhaps because no other alternative has ever come along. Personality or training may have instilled a certain mindset and method of approaching problems, and any idea that doesn’t agree with that way of thinking can be rejected out of hand.

  Resistances can come from all sorts of life experiences and habits, but, as Gardener points out, their influence isn’t always negative. They can force a more rigorous testing and presentation of ideas until they make sense ito someone who’s been unresponsive.

These approaches usually have to work together to effect change and convince all members of a collaborative group that a particular solution is the right one.

Using all of them to organize and present new ideas helps ensure that no one will be regarded as the problem or isolated as the source of resistance simply because they are unconvinced by the methods that work well for others.

Related posts:

1. Power Differences, Consensus Building & Collaborative Networks

Many who spend their time trying to find agreement among adversaries have long been familiar with the work of John Forester. A professor of planning at Cornell, he’s always followed his own path directly into the realities of facilitative practice rather than the intricacies of theory. Dealing with Differences: Dramas of Mediating Public Disputes is a remarkable presentation of what he’s learned over the past decade.

His earlier books, Planning in the Face of Power
and The Deliberative Practitioner, focused on the immediate work of planners and public managers and their experience with participatory methods.

Dealing with Differences uses this same approach. Through his skillful interviews with dozens of facilitative leaders, he elicits the stories that capture choices they made in the midst of contentious disputes. This is the immediate drama of discovery experienced by practitioners and participants alike. As he summarizes his method of interviewing:

Asking “What did you think about X?” we have found, gets us a theory or speculation; asking “What did you do when X happened?” gives us a flow action to consider. Asking what someone thought about a bluff or strategy gives us the considered opinion of a spectator; asking how they responded to the bluff or strategy gives us the considered judgments of an engaged actor — and that’s what this book’s about: the hows of dealing with differences of interests, values, and power.

How adversaries manage to learn from each other is one of the book’s major themes. The diverse practitioners who tell their stories share an ability to help people locked in confrontation to set aside their combative mindsets. We hear exactly how they moved groups from the conviction that fruitful communication could never occur to an openness to learn from differing views and exchange new ideas for future action.

• We listen to Shirley Solomon describing the moments of human understanding and learning between county and tribal residents in Skagit County, Washington. By talking together about what they valued in the place they shared, rather than arguing political positions, they were able to set aside decades of conflict to focus on practical steps.

• Mike Hughes in Colorado talks about progress on HIV/AIDS issues that surprised stakeholders who had thought any constructive outcome impossible because of deep value differences. The approach in this case was to agree to respect those differences rather than waste time trying to convert each other. The stakeholders could then move on to consider specific areas of possible cooperation.

• Carl Moore describes how he shifted residents of a midwestern city away from repetition of familiar problems to possible action for the future.

• In facilitating a roundtable on the highly charged issue of off highway vehicle use on public lands, Lisa Beutler relates how she was able to reframe discussion and shift from hostile argument to dialogue on practical issues the stakeholders could work on.

An important dimension of Forester’s approach is his broad view of facilitative leadership. He does not limit himself to professionals who devote their careers to mediation and dialogue. While their work offers valuable examples, his larger concern is for the thousands of planners, managers, elected leaders and others trying to use collaborative methods in many different professional roles.

Like Peter Adler in Eye of the Storm Leadership, John Forester understands that it is these leaders who will play critical roles in spreading knowledge of the usefulness of collaborative methods far beyond a single professional circle. Dealing with Differences tells powerful stories to help public policy leaders move from theory to effective practice.

This is a passionate book intent on pushing aside facile arguments against collaborative process. It takes on the political “realists” who have simply given up hope for change and want to rely on confrontation and conflict. And it challenges the “practical” critics who regard the approach as too time-consuming, costly or simply idealistic. Forester insists that criticism needs to be constructive and based on considered review of specific accomplishments and methods, not a matter of offhand judgments.

To make that possible, he clearly summarizes the practical wisdom drawn from the narratives of facilitative leaders. These summaries resonate more deeply than most “lessons learned” because he conveys so well the immediate drama of practitioners responding to challenges within the dynamic of group experience. He creates an exceptionally helpful context for the stories of how participants can be guided to make important breakthroughs.

These are exactly the “war stories” that practitioners love to share because they are so helpful for relearning basic lessons and sharpening skills. This book opens that dialogue to a wider public and organizes it clearly and evocatively so that others can learn from these experiences. Those are exciting stories to hear, and few have communicated their essence so skillfully as John Forester.

Related posts:

1. Weaving Collaborative Networks – 2
2. Power Differences, Consensus Building & Collaborative Networks

Power differences among members of a collaborative effort – whether conceived as a network or a consensus building process – have long been a major concern of observers and stakeholders alike. One of the basic characteristics of these groups is their voluntary, non-coercive nature and the equal voice accorded to each participant. The fear is that the use of power by major players could become coercive and destructive of trust.

At the same time, though, the existence of power disparities and the use of power by the more influential participants are also essential to successful collaboration. That may seem like a paradox, but it’s no surprise. The collective power of a network of stakeholders grows out of its diversity of skills and types of influence. In fact, one of the major incentives for participation is the benefit of having access to influence and resources that individual members lack.

The more powerful stakeholders are exactly the ones who play critical roles in securing institutional support and resources to turn paper agreements into practical results. The problem, then, is how to ensure that these differences have beneficial rather than destructive effects.

This applies equally to collaborative networks and to consensus building processes. Many researchers have characterized consensus groups as one form of collaborative network, and, as mentioned in an earlier post the two share many characteristics. The unequal distribution of power is a fact of life that can undermine or enhance each one.

• Both work with a “flat” rather than hierarchical structure. Power is shared rather than concentrated in the hands of a dominatant authority.

• Each attempts to achieve results that individual members could not achieve on their own.

• Both are self-organizing and voluntary: the participants agree to a common set of purposes and groundrules, including the definition and responsibilities of membership.

• Collaboratives generate commitment to participation through shared meaning, mutual purposes and access to the benefit of pooled skills and resources.

• They create an atmosphere that lends itself to generating new ideas and options as well as establishing support for potential outcomes.

• They are open to broad inclusion of concerned stakeholder communities.

• Each operates informally with no legal authority or permanent organization.

• Because of their informality, they can adapt to changing conditions much more rapidly than legally chartered, hierarchical institutions.

If misused, disparities in resources and influence can easily undermine each of these key characteristics. The essential flat structure of equal participation can yield to domination by a few major stakeholders over several aspects of the process: setting purposes and groundrules, selecting and rejecting members, controlling the availability of expertise and limiting the choice of options for implementation.

In other words, the most powerful groups can manipulate and distort the whole idea of collaboration. As Robert Agranoff, one of the leading researchers in this field, describes the problem in Collaborative Public Management, one of the weaknesses of current research methods is the inability to shed light on the subject of power. The measures so far developed “do not capture the level of power and influence that various players may possess, thus masking the possible existence of coercive behavior in collaborative management.”

While researchers may have trouble measuring the role of power, stakeholders, conveners and facilitators involved in collaborative efforts are keenly aware of its potential dangers and benefits. One way in which a well-designed process channels power into productive purposes is by getting agreement of participants on which problems need to be addressed. The incentive of the stakeholders is to focus precisely on the ones that have proven incapable of unilateral solution in the past. Members of the group recognize that they need a joint effort to resolve the problem and to reach their goals. The incentives, then, work in favor of cooperative efforts among stakeholders. In these circumstances, the more powerful players well understand that attempts to coerce or dominate will only lead to breakdown of the effort.

Another method recognizes that while shared need and interdependence may exist regarding the problem before the group, the same participants may be fighting over other issues in different forums. The stakeholders have to agree to keep these sharply contrasting relationships, one collaborative, the other adversarial, completely separate. Stakeholders are asked to “live in two worlds,” by focusing on the benefits of collaborative work in one context and reserving the adversarial use of their resources for litigation or lobbying campaigns.

These two approaches, among many others, are integral to a well-designed collaboration and are essential conditions for harnessing power differences for the good of the process. Both, however, run into a problem over the long term. Agreements and groundrules to protect collaboration only capture conditions at the they are made. Things change during the course of collaborative work. Power may shift in ways that remove incentives to share resources with other stakeholders, and coercive methods may seem more promising.

There is no easy answer to that larger problem, and everyone involved in public policy collaboration has to be alert to the need for adaptive strategies. Fortunately, the informal and self-organizing nature of a collaborative process is well suited for responding to rapid change. The hope is that adaptation to power shifts can result in continuing benefit to the group as a whole rather than its undoing.

Related posts:

1. Consensus Building: Changing Minds to Reach Agreement
2. What Do You Do When Consensus Fails?
3. John Forester: Dealing with Differences