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Context To The Story

(315 words; Approximate reading time: less than 2 minutes)

In this video I tell a story from a time when I was serving in a local government-appointed citizens’ advisory committee overseeing a 20-year plan for the area in which I live.

The other people on the committee represented a spectrum of values, viewpoints and perspectives.

During the first meeting we established our internal “rules of business” which stated that we would arrive at decisions by consensus, with majority voting as a last resort backup. However, we were not given a facilitator, and the Chair of the committee, who was in charge of facilitating, did not have any background or skills in group process.

Besides revising and deciding what to incorporate from the previous plan, the scope of work included all land-use policy, all infrastructure including roads and utilities, community and capital facilities (fire stations, community centers, libraries, etc.), as well as economics and jobs. We were told that we would meet once per month, for 2 or 3 hours at a time, for 5 months to complete our work; everyone was very busy, so there would be little time to work on things outside of the meetings.

Various factors — the scope and complexity of the work, the 20-year planning horizon, the mix of perspectives and values in the group, the extremely limited time in which to complete the work — left me feeling discouraged about a quality outcome.

This story begins at our second meeting, and there was a full agenda.

I felt VERY strongly about the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the future unfolding of my geographic area, and was not willing to passively sit back. I would have rather left the committee than waste my time in an unsatisfactory and ineffective process.

In a similar situation, what would you do?

In this video I tell you how I used my Nonviolent Communication skills to shift the course of possibilities from “guaranteed to fail” to “a reasonable chance of success.”