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

The real test of a collaborative agreement only begins when the changes it requires hit the streets. That’s when it gets personal. Carrying out an agreement usually means that particular people will have to do things differently, pay costs they’re not used to paying, live with new restrictions, new requirements.

The negative side of change is often the first to be noticed, even if an agreement’s hoped-for benefits have been well-publicized. They may look fine on paper but quite different when change comes knocking on the door.

Half a century ago, Eric Hoffer wrote in The Ordeal of Change:

We can never be wholly prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.

That’s especially relevant when it comes to implementing a collaborative agreement. Every collaborative leader and practitioner works hard to ensure that all the interest groups necessary to produce and support an agreement are in the room.

Even processes that are well designed can’t possibly include everyone. Representation is not a perfect system. There is a wider public and there are operational staff within implementing organizations who haven’t been in the loop. They may hear of it only during or after formal adoption. Even if they’ve heard of it, the potential impact may not have been clear.

The first test of implementation takes place inside the very organization(s) charged with turning its provisions into actions. Those actions may require changes in the way staff and managers do their work. They may have to master new skills, new procedures, new goals and metrics to measure progress. That can look risky to both career prospects and professional self-esteem. And fears at that level will likely trigger resistance to change.

As noted in the earlier post, resistance is often considered an irrational obstacle to implementing new ideas and methods. There is likely a group ready to embrace the changes; they “understand.” The resisters “don’t get it” and stubbornly cling to their familiar ways.

What is often overlooked, however, is that those in favor of the change also have an emotional response. Instead of feeling fearful and threatened, they feel empowered and excited. In both cases, what happens is that people personalize the change. They favor or oppose it by imagining what it will mean for their own lives and jobs.

Marketers and politicians, among many others, have long understood that people don’t accept something new simply because they hear a list of excellent reasons. They have to be moved to act in a new way. When it comes to accepting the changes called for by new policies, both the staff charged with carrying them out and the members of affected communities need to translate the abstractions they hear into specific ways their daily personal and work lives might have to change.

Yet responses by leadership to emotional resistance usually rely on efforts to educate, to provide additional information to persuade the skeptics. That’s a rational strategy. It assumes that if each individual grasps the benefits, which seem obvious to those who support the new agreement, they should understand how their interests will be met and their situation improved, despite certain trade-offs that might be necessary.

It’s also assumed that emotion is a negative that clouds judgment. Reason should prevail through a calm appraisal of the pro’s and con’s. Emotion needs to be vented, gotten out of the way as quickly as possible. They are matters of individual adjustment.

If the change is deep enough, those assumptions don’t capture the reality. There are several dimensions that will not be touched by additional information and education.

• Emotion and reason are not good or bad. They are different ways of evaluating experience. Emotional responses indicate not only the intensity and hence importance of the concern. They also are signals about basic values that shape daily life. And as noted above, they are a principal means by which individuals internalize and make sense of impending change.

• Emotions are not entirely internal to individuals. People react on a feeling level to an event or perception of some kind and look to others experiencing the same thing for validation of that personal reaction. If you learn that most of the other staff in your program or neighbors in your community or whatever type of group you’re part of may share the same feeling you do, it’s a great relief. In that sense, emotional responses are highly social and are legitimized by being shared.

• One of the realities that is often forgotten in the push to carry out the terms of an agreement is that whatever change it requires is experienced in a broad context of other, unrelated shifts that are taking place at the same time. If the cumulative effect makes life or work harder, the latest change might be experienced as the last straw. Future benefits may not materialize, but I’m paying yet another price in the here and now.

So what to do?

• Start by recognize the legitimate feelings of the opposition – and show understanding of the larger context of change that is also putting pressure on them. Demonstrating that understanding lets people know you want to be responsive to the impacts they face.

• Take a collaborative approach in figuring out how to proceed from this point. Those who believe they’ll be harmed need to have a chance to communicate exactly what they’re concerned about and know that they’re really being listened to. If the response is more one-way flows of information to show how mistaken they are, that may only increase the frustration. They’ll believe they’re not being heard, and the divide between adopters and resisters will be reinforced.

• Create a forum to allow the expression of the fears of loss related to specific changes but then go beyond that to elicit ideas for action that respond to those concerns. This may well require the help of a facilitator trained in the many methods for working in this context. They will know how to structure and conduct meetings of this type to produce positive outcomes.

• To build on those results provide learning opportunities on how to put new ideas for action into practice. Organizational staff need training and/or mentoring tied to their specific assignments and assurance that they’ll be given adequate time and opportunity to master new skills. Community members need hands-on workshops close to home that give them a chance to learn step by step what they can do to carry out the ideas they’ve helped develop.

There is no way to accommodate everyone’s needs or respond to every concern. But there are ways to address the ones that are widely shared. Publicity campaigns and testimonials won’t do it. Responsive collaboration during implementation can make a positive contribution.

The Future Search Conference is one of several collaborative planning methods that take a “whole system” approach. These processes try to replace shelf-bound plans with agendas for action that are developed collaboratively in the course of intensive large-group meetings.

Key Concepts

To do this, Future Search insists on the basic starting principle: “Get the whole system in the room.” That means including everyone needed to make change happen – decision-makers from all the groups involved, internal staff and external stakeholders. A representative cross-section of these players at many levels of responsibility gathers to share ideas, identify strategies and make commitments to achieve measurable goals.

Approach

The Future Search Conference is held over a two and a half day period and works optimally with a group of 60-80. That number would give pause to many leaders. How is it possible for a group that size to agree on anything? When the idea of a collaborative effort comes up, most conveners and even practitioners start thinking about how to keep the group to a “manageable” size. 12-15 sounds doable, 20 is a stretch, 25-30 is getting into the realm of the uncontrollable.

And control is the issue. The Future Search method rejects tight facilitator control over the flow of the meeting and the whole idea that a group needs to be strictly guided toward a predefined goal. Instead the role of the facilitator is to explain the overall boundaries and tasks of each process phase but leave most of the meeting to self-managing work teams of 6-8 persons.

Conference Tasks

The conference divides the time into five segments, each with its specific task, and these are carried out through the alternation of work team and full group dialogue. In addition, there is an alternation of work teams that mix different stakeholder groups with those that consist of members of a single group.

The reason for the two types of work teams comes from a specific theory of Differentiation/Integration. The single stakeholder interest groups need to clarify their own needs during a large planning session (differentiation) but then intersperse with the other groups to define the common goals they can only accomplish by working together (integration). The work teams also need to participate in whole group dialogue for each task to ensure that everyone is aware of specific ideas and overall trends of thinking.

Here is the specific sequence of the conference, as summarized at the Future Search website:

Agenda

Day 1 Afternoon:

• Task 1: Focus on Past
  People make time lines of key events in the world, their own lives, and in the history of the future search topic. Small groups tell stories about each time line and the implications of their stories for the work they have come to do.
• Task 2: Focus On Present, External Trends
  The whole group makes a “mind map” of trends affecting them now and identifies those trends most important for their topic.

Day 2 Morning:

• Task 2 Continued: Stakeholder Response To External Trends
  Stakeholder groups report what they are proud of and sorry about in the way they are dealing with the future search topic.
• Task 2 Continued: Focus On The Present; Owning Our Actions
  Stakeholder groups describe what they are doing now about key trends and what they want to do in the future.

Day 2 Aternoon:

• Task 3: Ideal Future Scenarios
  Diverse groups put themselves into the future and describe their preferred future as if it has already been accomplished.
• Task 4: Identify Common Ground
  Diverse Groups post themes they believe are common ground for everyone.

Day 3 Morning:

• Task 4 Continued: Confirm Common Ground
  Whole group dialogues to agree on common ground.
• Task 5: Action Planning
  Volunteers sign up to implement action plans.

Caveats

Successful implementation depends on effective organizational leadership with clear purpose and commitment to collaboration. These decision-makers also need to take part in the process itself, both because they are necessary to confirmation of common ground and action steps and also to reaffirm their commitment to follow-up through their visible involvement.

An effective Future Search Conference also depends on extensive planning by a diverse group that can get all participants to the meeting. The members of this steering committee need to become thoroughly familiar with the principles and methods of Future Search to ensure that they share direction of process planning with a consulting facilitator.

This process focuses on future possibilities rather than on past problems. It is not the appropriate method for conflict resolution or for the reconciliation of deep value differences. Groups of differing values certainly participate but they focus on the future actions for which collaboration among diverse groups is necessary.

Future Search is one of most time-tested large group methods for whole system change and adaptation to new conditions. It has been applied in many different settings around the world, like Open Space Technology, and merits close consideration by any group committed to collaborative methods for planning its future.

Resources

There is an active network of practitioners who spend a great deal of time mentoring newcomers. Their website is: Future Search Network.

The essential guide to the method is: Future Search, Second Edition

For important insights to the facilitation techniques based in this school of practice, I recommend reading Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!: Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter