- What is Facilitated Dialog?
- How is Facilitated Dialog Different From Other Processes?
- What Steps Do We Take in Facilitated Dialog?
- How Much Does It Cost?
- What Values Do You Bring to Facilitated Dialog?
- How Can You Prepare for a Facilitated Dialog?
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What is Facilitated Dialog?
- Facilitated: Sometimes, having a third party present can help two parties (individuals or groups) communicate more clearly and effectively.
- The facilitator’s participation in the dialog will vary with the participants’ needs, such as:
- offering a quiet, mindful presence as a reminder of our aspirations;
- providing informal training and resources related to conflict, communication, and reflective practices;
- actively facilitating, such to asking questions or reframing requests; and
- offering shuttle diplomacy and private meetings.
- In all cases, the facilitator supports the participants through process and presence.
- The participants remain the experts on their situation, experiences, needs, and ways forward.
- The facilitator will adapt to the dialog, supporting the participants in the least intrusive way possible to engage with one another in creative and constructive ways.
- Dialog: Dialogs are an opportunity to practice deep listening and mindful speaking.
- The goal is listening to understand; understanding helps us both identify needs and the possibilities for best meeting them.
- In the process, we might explore assumptions, identify commonalities and differences, clarify both personal and group aspirations and goals, and discover connections to shared needs and possible strategies for meeting them.
- We are oriented around self and group reflection. A common question we return to is, “What would you most like others to understand?”
How is Facilitated Dialog Different From Other Processes?
- Facilitated dialog is not a legal process, nor is it a replacement for a legal process.
- Facilitated dialog is not used to investigate or substantiate allegations of wrong doing.
- Facilitated dialog is not a substitute for personal or group therapy.
- Facilitated dialog is not a formal mediation process and does not issue formal or binding agreements.
What Steps Do We Take in Facilitated Dialog?
- All parties agree to meet together with a facilitator.
- The facilitator needs to agree that dialog is an appropriate tool for the situation.
- The participants need to agree that they are willing to meet with one another for this process and with this facilitator.
- Sessions will include at least one facilitator and two parties (or groups). Participants decide together who will be invited.
- Dialogs don’t typically progress from one stage to another in sequential fashion, and not every dialog contains all of these stages.
- Instead, we move from one type of interaction to another, sometimes jumping and sometimes stepping, as our feelings are heard and our needs met.
- At the meeting, we begin by establishing ground rules. These connect to our most skillful intentions for mindful speaking and listening. Examples include:
- Listen to understand, not to approve/disapprove or praise/blame.
- Speak honestly and kindly.
- Be willing to listen to different perspectives.
- Be aware of everyone’s voice and make time and space for everyone to participate. Speak from your experience and honor the experiences of others.
- Parties then take turns sharing with one another how they have experienced the situation and/or conflict. This occurs without interruption, with time for clarification as needed.
- Out of this new understanding of the conflict, situation, and one another, we can then work together to identify issues and underlying needs.
- Depending on the situation, needs may be prioritized.
- We then have a dialog about each need: listening deeply, speaking mindfully, and exploring possibilities.
- If decisions are made, we’ll make sure they are recorded and shared with the participants.
- A typical session will last between 1 and 2 hours. We can adjust this time according to participant needs and preferences.
- At the end of a session, we will decide what next steps are needed, if any.
- We can also arrange for a facilitator to have a follow up session to check in with participants after a specified amount of time.
How Much Does It Cost?
- Welcoming Path does not charge for facilitated dialog services.
- We welcome participants to make a donation to a social justice organization in lieu of payment.
What Values Do You Bring to Facilitated Dialog?
- Goodwill:
- Humans make decisions and choose strategies based on what they believe will meet their needs.
- This is true even when they have misunderstood their needs and/or chosen an inappropriate and harmful strategy.
- NOTE: This does not excuse or justify harmful behavior, nor should it be used diminish or ignore that harm.
- Open-heartedness & Curiosity:
- Dialog invites us to slow down the interpretive processes we use to make judgments and decisions.
- This allows us to focus on understanding first, empowering us to be intentional about our decisions, communication, and behaviors.
- We are moving from reactivity to responsiveness.
- Honesty & Respect:
- Creating environments, cultures, and relationships where we can deal honestly with each other is a key to healthy dialog. This requires intention and attention.
- Especially where trust has been injured, functional mistrust is an appropriate response to conflict. Acknowledging this is part of the healing process that helps restore functional trust.
- At times, this means being able to honestly express our boundaries and limitations.
- “I don’t know” and “I am not ready to talk about that” are important tools for dialog.
- Justice:
- Facilitated dialog is built on the principles of equality in community and radical inclusion. It assumes that participants share these values and a commitment to them.
- However, facilitated dialog may not be an appropriate strategy to address certain situations or systems of injustice, especially when power imbalances make equal participation unlikely.
- Facilitated dialog is not meant to help participants accommodate injustice; in some cases, though, it may be used to help to name, explore, and transform it.
- If a dialog uncovers entrenched systems of oppression and marginalization, the facilitator may suspend the process in favor of a process that is designed to address such situations and systems.
- Restoration & Transformation:
- Conflict is part of the human experience. It may be inevitable, but coercion and violence are not.
- We already know how to navigate many experiences of conflict and stress in healthy, productive ways, and do so on a regular basis in daily life.
- Facilitated dialog helps us tap into those skills, and to learn new ones, that help us cultivate personal habits, group policies, and organizational cultures that lead to restoration, rather than retribution.
- Restoration applies to multiple dimensions (intrapersonal, relational, structural, and cultural). The skills and practices overlap.
- However, we do not assume that restoration is always appropriate or possible.
- Healthy boundaries, both personal and organizational, are essential to long-term restoration of relationships and the development of habits that promote conflict transformation.
- Empowerment & Transformation:
- Since the participants are the experts about their own experiences and situations, they know best what their feelings and needs are.
- We believe in the participants’ capacity to handle conflict in ways that best meet their needs, and that facilitated dialog is one opportunity to access resources that support that process.
- Facilitators have a process, but not an agenda. A successful dialog is one in which participants are empowered to handle conflict and stress, now and in the future, in increasingly constructive and creative ways.
- Mindfulness & Flexibility:
- As with all ADR approaches, we recognize that facilitated dialog is vulnerable to favoring certain types of behaviors or skills, such as self-expression and emotional regulation.
- We also recognize that participants’ have their own experiences, assumptions and values that impact a dialog process.
- This includes both established habits/patterns within an organization or relationship, and past triggers stemming from previous experiences of conflict or stress.
- We also recognize that participants that belong to marginalized communities often experience microaggressions.
- These and similar dynamics require facilitators and participants to be committed to working together with awareness of power, internalized oppression/dominance, and safety, and may necessitate adapting the process to meet these needs and concerns.
- Privacy & Confidentiality:
- Facilitators are committed to your confidentiality and will not divulge any information about your dialog sessions.
- While we cannot guarantee that all participants will respect confidentiality, we do encourage all participants to respect the privacy of everyone involved.
How Can You Prepare for a Facilitated Dialog?
- Setting aside some time to reflect before a dialog session can make the process more efficient and effective.
- For example, you may ask yourself:
- What are my goals for participating in this facilitated dialog?
- What changes do I hope to see?
- What expectations and assumptions do I have?
- Are my experiences of this conflict related to solving a specific problem, healing emotional or relational wounds, or both?
- What needs have gone unmet because of the conflict?
- What are the most important needs I would like met now?
- What is it that I really want the other person to understand about my experience?
- How can I express my experiences and needs in a way that is most likely to get my needs met?
- Is there anything I need to be aware of in terms of interacting with the other people?
- Do I feel uncomfortable about anything?
- Are there any topics I am likely to feel angry or sad about?
- Are there any things I can do or request that will be supportive to my emotional and physical well-being during the dialog?
