Day 2 Bounce

Esther Ewing eewing at inforamp.net
Mon Dec 14 12:35:47 PST 1998


My most memorable experience of just such a day two of energy ocurred the
very first time I facilitated. It was a group of finance leaders in a very
large city hospital and their cynicism had held them back from posting the
real issues that they needed to post on day one. Also, my client, the
controller, was very concerned that they were "missing the boat". I
reassured him and spoke of the frustration that groups sometimes have at
that point - normalized and validated the feelings, and said that I knew of
a way to make it more focused for day two. At the day one closing, when
they expressed their frustration, I offered to let them post new topics for
day two and to withdraw topics that no longer seemed important. I reminded
them that the right topics don't appear by magic, that they would need to
take responsiblity for making them happen then I adjourned the group. The
next morning they came prepared to redo the agenda, they requested more
shorter periods of time divisions and they flew through the day. My client,
by 10:30 am was commenting on how wise I was in the ways of groups (if only
he knew, I thought!) and they had a very happy culmination.

Luckily, I went on my instinct which turned out to be well founded and it
all worked out. But the surge was incredible. Overnight they had come to
their conclusions about what really mattered and the next day they focused
on that.

Happy ending!
Esther



More information about the OSList mailing list