blue ribbon committees

A Beginner’s Guide to Facilitation

January 25, 2016 By Otis White

If you’re a civic leader, chances are that you’ll have to facilitate a meeting. It could be for a community task force or an intergovernmental planning group. It might be a community visioning meeting or a nonprofit board planning retreat. However it happens, don’t be surprised to find yourself managing a group of people who are struggling toward a decision.

You know how decision making works inside an organization or within a political setting, of course. A group makes a proposal, another group might argue against it, and a third group (the boss, the board, the city council) decides.

Well, put aside that image. In the meetings I have in mind, there’s just one group, which explores the issue, discusses different solutions, and comes to a decision. If you’re the chair (or if the chair has asked you to facilitate), it’s your job to get this group through its fact-finding and discussion and to a decision.

So how do you do that?

I’ll offer some pointers below, but first let me tell you why facilitation is growing in importance: We need more collaboration. Cities are increasingly archipelagos of dispersed power, and to bridge these islands of influence, we need people who can help independent decision makers think and act together. That can be you.

Here, then, are some of the basics of structure, process, and coming to decision. Consider it a beginner’s guide to facilitation.

Structure: There are three cardinal rules: Deal with the present before the future, the outside before the inside, and the “what” before the “how.”

If you have a day-long retreat, spend the morning discussing the current situation: basically, how we came to this place and how we’re positioned to deal with the issues we face. Many strategic planning sessions start out with a SWOT analysis (which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). This can help participants understand the present before talking about the future.

If you do a SWOT analysis, be sure to begin with the “OT” parts, the external opportunities and threats, before the “SW,” the internal strengths and weaknesses. This will help focus participants on the issues they face and avoid getting bogged down in blame-casting.

As the discussion moves to the future, you’ll want the group to set goals before discussing strategies. This is harder than it sounds because most of us live in the “how” parts of our jobs, not the “what” parts. But if the group gets sidetracked by the details of doing, it will never focus on setting goals.

Process: The most basic thing participants want in an important meeting is to be heard. Not just listened to, but heard and acknowledged. So find ways of doing this.

When I facilitate meetings, I write down what people say on large flip charts. Others use laptops with overhead projectors. This isn’t just procedural. Recording what people say in such a visible way moves the meeting along, as people tend not to repeat themselves when their comments are on display. It also helps the group see connections among ideas, and that can help with decision making.

Coming to decision: As the group discusses the future, try framing what participants say as alternatives. As these alternatives are fleshed out, post them on a wall, adding details as the discussion moves along. At some point, it may be obvious which alternative the group prefers.

If not, you can ask the group to vote. Roll calls work, but a better way is dot voting, especially if there are a number of alternatives. You know the drill: You hand participants some colored dots and ask them to vote for the solutions they think are most viable.

Dot voting is transparent, interactive, and surprisingly enjoyable. You’ll be impressed by how seriously participants study the alternatives. And when it’s done, the group’s decision will be as plain as the dots on the wall.

The Blue-Ribbon Exception That Proves the Rule

December 17, 2010 By Otis White

I was amazed to hear on Nov. 9 that the co-chairs of the bipartisan commission on reducing the national deficit had issued a detailed plan for doing just that. Former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, who was chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, offered a plan that was a mix of spending cuts (to domestic and military budgets), policy changes (gradually raising the age for Social Security benefits), tax reforms (goodbye mortgage interest deductions) and revenue increases (hiking the federal gas tax by 15 cents a gallon). While the plan wouldn’t eliminate the deficit, Simpson and Bowles said, it would bring it under control—assuming American citizens and their lawmakers were willing to take strong medicine.

It wasn’t the details of the plan, though, that surprised me. It was Simpson and Bowles’ decision to release their plan before the 18-member commission had finished its work. The commission had been given until the first week of December to make its recommendations, and under the rules laid down by legislation, if 14 of the 18 members agreed to a plan, it would automatically go to the Senate and House for a vote. Why hadn’t the co-chairs waited for the other 16 members, I wondered.

Background: I’ve managed blue-ribbon committees over the years. And my advice to committee chairs has been consistent: Stay focused on managing the process and trust that the group will come to good decisions. Be positive. If members argue, give them room for debate and make sure it doesn’t get personal. If some members grow impatient or frustrated, talk to them privately and do your best to keep them on board. When you see the group moving to common ground, call it to everyone’s attention and push for consensus and agreement. Most important, keep your opinions to yourself.

The model I’ve suggested to chairs was George Washington in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and others fought over the big issues. Washington rarely offered his own solutions, focusing instead on process and looking for areas of agreement. That has been my idea of a chair’s role. So why had two respected, experienced political leaders like Simpson and Bowles done things so differently with this commission? What was their goal? And would it work?

It took several weeks for the answers to reveal themselves. Some came in an hour-long interview with Simpson and Bowles on PBS’s “Charlie Rose” show on Nov. 16. Rose never asked the question I most wanted answered—“Why not wait for the commissioners to act?”—but the co-chairs’ thinking became clearer as they talked. (Important to know: 12 of the commission’s members were current senators or representatives.) Said Simpson, “When you have 12 of these 18 of us who are members of Congress, it is so tough for them” to act decisively. He added later, speaking for himself and Bowles, “We’re not going to put out some whitewash (plan) that’s just a bunch of principles.” Bowles agreed. “I think we had to lay a predicate out there that would force action by this Congress and future Congresses.”

Let me translate: The commission’s goal, as Simpson and Bowles interpreted it, was to lay out an honest plan for reducing the deficit. But honest plans, especially those prescribing the level of pain that deficit reduction would require, rarely get much support from risk-averse politicians. Most of the commission members were, ahem, risk-averse politicians. So rather than offering “whitewash that’s just a bunch of principles,” which is what Simpson and Bowles believed the commission would have done on its own, the co-chairs decided to lay out a “predicate” (a bold plan) that would at least get people talking.

It certainly did that—and more. When the Simpson-Bowles plan finally came to a vote on Dec. 1, many were surprised that a majority of commissioners (11 of the 18) voted for it, including six of the 12 elected officials. It was enough to win the commission’s formal recommendation, though not enough to require a vote in Congress.

But Simpson and Bowles weren’t aiming for a mostly symbolic vote in Congress. They wanted to shift public opinion and political discussion away from hand-wringing and empty resolutions and toward actions that would make a real difference. They knew that others on the committee would be reluctant to champion such things because of the political costs, and they were willing to take the heat themselves.

Did it work? Well, their plan was adopted with few changes and was probably more realistic than the commission would have drafted on its own. It made an important point: Liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans could agree on deficit reductions, as long as they included some of each party’s ideas.

And it shifted the political discussion, at least for a while. Within days of the commission’s vote, politicians were talking openly about ideas that were previously taboo, like reducing the mortgage interest deduction and raising the age for Social Security. President Obama got on board, announcing that he had asked his economic advisers for ways of simplifying the tax code along the lines that Simpson and Bowles had suggested.

So, is it always wrong for blue-ribbon committee chairs to advance their own ideas, to “pull” the committee rather than “push” it? No, not always. The deficit reduction commission shows an important exception to the George Washington model. And that is when:

The committee is charged with describing a course of action that will require serious sacrifices.
Public discussions of the issue have been sidetracked by unrealistic expectations.
For political reasons, members are reluctant to take the heat for recommending serious sacrifices.
The chair or co-chairs are willing to take the heat themselves.
The chair or co-chairs are reasonably sure that when the shock wears off, the committee will accept their core ideas.

In a way, what Simpson and Bowles did proves the larger point, that being chair is about putting the committee first. If you care more about a specific solution than you do about a successful process, you should be a member, not a chair. What Simpson and Bowles saw was a commission that wanted to do the right thing but feared the consequences. By stepping out front, they helped their blue-ribbon committee succeed, and that’s the highest calling of committee chairs.

Footnote: This is speculation, but my guess is that Simpson and Bowles told the other members what they were doing and, in the wink-and-nod environment of Washington, got their private blessings. The worst thing you can do in politics is surprise public officials. In reading the news articles after the plan was released, I saw no hint that other members were angry at the co-chairs’ actions. My bet: They weren’t because they knew it was coming.

What Leaders Can Learn from Consumer Reports

July 20, 2010 By Otis White

Apple, Inc. is the creator of elegant and ingenious products, and its reputation on Wall Street and with technology geeks and consumers could hardly be better. So when word circulated in blogs that Apple’s latest gadget, the iPhone 4, was dropping calls, the company’s first reaction was to dismiss the complaints as some people not knowing how to hold a cell phone properly. But a week or so later, when a 74-year-old publication called Consumer Reports said it wouldn’t recommend the iPhone 4 to its subscribers because of the signal-loss problem, Apple suddenly came around. It called a press conference to announce a software fix, a free case for iPhone users and a refund for anyone unhappy with the phone. CEO Steve Jobs said he was “stunned and embarrassed” by the Consumer Reports judgment.

There’s something delicious about a high-flying technology company running head first into an earnest, old-fashioned research outfit like Consumer Reports. But it’s also worth asking: How did Consumer Reports come to be so respected by the public and the news media? And can leaders borrow some of that magic for use in their communities?

First, about Consumer Reports: It’s the principal publication of a nonprofit organization called Consumers Union. Consumers Union was founded in 1936 on the belief that average people needed protection from shoddy merchandise and that the best way of determining a product’s quality was to test it using scientific methods. To ensure its credibility, Consumer Reports does not accept advertising and will not allow companies to use its ratings in their ads or commercials. Consumer Reports’ reputation, then, rests on promises to its subscribers: It promises to be on the side of consumers (establishing trust), makes it clear that it cannot be bought (giving it legitimacy) and spells out its testing methodology (showing that its judgments are fair and reliable).

Now, let’s think about communities. Is there anything like Consumer Reports in your city—an institution, individual, organization or process that citizens turn to in sorting out public disputes? Actually, in a few places there are. It might be a highly trusted politician or political body; a newspaper or longtime broadcaster; a respected nonprofit, such as a chamber of commerce or civic league; or maybe even a well regarded civic volunteer. But most communities don’t have any of these. In these places, politicians are just politicians, the chamber is seen as a mouthpiece of the business community, there is no civic league, and the newspaper is dying, irrelevant—or both. If there were any highly regarded civic volunteers, they’ve retired or moved away.

So what can community leaders do to build support for tough decisions in places where no one is trusted? You can follow the Consumer Reports’ formula in creating processes based on the its promises of trust, legitimacy, fairness and reliability. One way is to convene a “blue ribbon committee.” You know how this works: A mayor or county commission asks a group of prominent citizens to listen to all sides, consult with experts and arrive at a set of findings and recommendations.

The federal government is particularly fond of blue ribbon committees (or commissions, as they’re sometimes called). Think of the 9/11 Commission, which looked into the causes of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack, and the Warren Commission on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. More recently, President Obama created a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to recommend ways of reducing the federal deficit.

You see blue ribbon committees at the local level, too. A good example is Tampa Bay’s ABC task force, a group of business and community leaders formed to figure out how to keep major league baseball in the region.

The best of these committees follow Consumer Reports’ promises. They start by announcing their purpose and whom they represent in their deliberations, establishing public trust. If they are chosen well, they will represent all sectors of the community, giving the committee legitimacy. (In other words, ensuring that no single faction will get its way.)

The best blue ribbon committees go about their work in ways that are transparently fair and reliable. This is where these committees often stumble: They start out thinking their members’ reputations are so strong that they don’t need to open their meetings to observers, and, sadly, they aren’t.

This became an issue in Atlanta in 2010 when the Atlanta Journal-Constitution questioned a blue ribbon committee that was looking into whether some public schools altered standardized test scores in order to look better. The newspaper raised concerns about the committee’s members, suggesting they were too close to the school system. But mostly it criticized the process: School system officials were too deeply involved in the committee’s work, the newspaper said. Others defended the panel’s work, accusing the newspaper of judging the committee’s work before it was finished, but the damage was done. If people didn’t like the committee’s report, the newspaper had given them the perfect excuse: It was influenced by the school system and its allies.

Even if you do everything perfectly, you’ll be criticized. After all, this is community work, and criticism comes with the territory. Consumer Reports has been criticized and occasionally sued over the years. It has even been wrong on rare occasions because of mistakes in testing. But the public’s confidence in Consumer Reports’ judgment has remained strong—strong enough to bring companies like Apple to heel—because it never forgets its promises: trust, legitimacy, fairness and reliability.

A Beginner’s Guide to Facilitation

The Blue-Ribbon Exception That Proves the Rule

What Leaders Can Learn from Consumer Reports

About Otis White

The Great Project

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