In Hard Times, Focus on ‘Process’

If there are recurring problems in meetings these need to be addressed in the meeting rather than endured. The key to this is switching the focus of the Forum from the ‘content’ of meetings, to the ‘process’ i.e. what is going on between people, the format, how people are feeling:

• Be aware of the need to address ‘process’ issues and raise them whenever progress of the meeting is being impeded
• Assign a ‘process facilitator’ for each meeting until people get the hang of this. It’s their job to:
  • Alert the meeting to what is going on
  • Suggest action e.g. re-visit the working agreement, get input from those who’ve not spoken, break in to smaller groups
• Examples of ‘process’ issues are:
  • 1 or 2 people are dominating discussion
  • tensions are rising
  • people are not finding out the reasons behind viewpoints
  • energies are flagging
  • not keeping to time