What, How, and Why Facilitate?

Preface

This is a bare bones introduction to the concept of Facilitation as it relates to a private dispute resolution center.  The purpose of this essay is to provide the reader a general scope in which to understand specific facilitation initiatives that he or she may consider providing.

Table of Contents

• Introduction -- What is Facilitation?
• What Facilitation is not.
• Which Conflicts need Facilitation?
• How Facilitation Initiatives are Conducted.
• Conclusion.
  

Introduction -- What is Facilitation?

Facilitation is the process by which parties are prepared for negotiation or mediation.  While mediated settlements of problems can be very successful, in larger or chronic conflicts the parties often need facilitation before they are ready to negotiate or otherwise interact in a mediated environment. In the process of developing a larger theory of negotiation, [1] the process of facilitation was born.  Facilitation may take many forms, from institutionalizing committees to track two analytical initiatives.

Generally facilitation helps groups identify their interests, define legitimacy, understand their relationships, appreciate their alternatives  [3] and options to negotiation, and to understand methods for communication.  Facilitation also often includes establishing paths of contact and understanding between groups.  It uses a variety of processes that aid parties in becoming ready to negotiate.  Facilitation is a process that leads towards dispute resolution. [table of contents]

What Facilitation is not.

Facilitation is not a denial that there are real, objective and true conflicts.  Facilitation is not an attempt to "resolve" everything by educating everyone out of subjective misperceptions.

Facilitation is not appeasement.  It is not a process aimed at teaching the group how to give into interests.

Facilitation is not a process to support power.  It does not exist to maintain (or to change) the status quo.

Facilitation is not a "one shot" solution to any conflict.

Further, facilitation should not be a process by which a third party seeks to impose a pre-selected solution on a group or groups. [table of contents]

Which Conflicts need Facilitation?

There are traditionally two types of conflicts that benefit from facilitation.

First, are conflicts where the parties are refusing to talk to each other.  The Middle East Peace Process began with parties that refused to even acknowledge each other's existence and that refused to talk to each other.

In this type of conflict, facilitation serves to provide a bridge that allows the parties to talk -- and to talk effectively.

Second, are conflicts where the parties have chronic conflicts and have been unable to reach negotiated settlements that endure.

As noted by Robert Fisher, most institutions are not a single rational actor.  [2]  Facilitation prepares the inside groups and aids them in "buying into" the settlement process -- in many ways it provides a process for mediating the internal conflicts that prevent a group from ratifying and carrying out a settlement.  Often pre-negotiation facilitation grows into a continuing interactive process within the institution engaged in the negotiation process.

Facilitation, like mediation, arbitration, conciliation and other alternative dispute resolution methods, is not a universal tool appropriate for every conflict or problem.  However, in the right circumstances it can be a powerful tool that leads towards resolution. [table of contents]

How Facilitation Initiatives are Conducted.

There are four types of Facilitation Initiatives (FIs) appropriate to a PADR Center.  These are conducted by a neutral (or panel of neutrals) in a "non-official" (non-governmental) setting that is confidential, mediated, and neutral.  

• Surrogate Negotiations [4]
  • This is the process of using surrogates to negotiate a surrogate settlement which is reduced to a draft that is then circulated as a "one text" or single negotiated text between the actual parties and which forms the basis for the beginning of negotiations (with the stated assumption that the "one text" will not be acceptable to either side and that changes will need to be made).
• Concurrent Committees
  • This is the process of setting up intra-group feed back and correlation committees that meet concurrently with continuing negotiations in order to bring the organization along with the negotiation (and the negotiator along with the organization) -- recognizing that neither positions or groups remain static within the organization while it negotiates with those without.
• Problem Solving Workshops
  • The scholastic method favored by many conflict resolution centers.
  • There are a number of approaches to these workshops, and most alternatives are within the scope of a PADR Center.
• Peer Training
  • Training peer-to-peer mediators on both sides of a conflict often will begin to generate the necessary understandings and skills base to allow negotiations to go forward.  Peer training is an extremely important method of FI that is extremely suited to a PADR Center's size, scope and focus.
• Rules Setting (outside the scope of a PADR Center)
  • Some conflicts will not enter into negotiation until the parties are certain of the rules (usually the controlling law of the situation) where the rules are uncertain.  Thus some conflicts require that an outside party adjudicate portions of the conflict by setting rules -- either by court decisions or legislation -- that control the nature and effect of a party's best alternative to a negotiated settlement (or BATNA) [5]  While a PADR can help parties frame their approach to a legislative, rules making or judicial body, it is a private, not a governmental Center and thus not able to set the rules necessary for a conflict to be negotiated.

Each of these Facilitation Initiatives or FIs will be discussed in its own section(s).  Each has its own strengths and weaknesses that depend on the situation, the parties and other matters. The sections will provide greater depth on how a neutral, fair, confidential and appropriate process is applied in each method or FI.

There are additional forms of FI that are more appropriate to other institutions besides a PADR.  Further, there is a form of non-Facilitation, Disengagement, that is appropriate in some circumstances when the parties are no longer able to negotiate face-to-face, and that relates to an end of negotiations between parties.

Finally, a PADR Center can provide follow-up services that keep the resolution successful -- the so-called "post settlement settlements." [7]

Conclusion.

Often referred to as a modified form of mediation [6] facilitation is a useful service and an important facet of alternative dispute resolution.  A Private Alternative Dispute Resolution Center (a PADR Center) can offer services that aid parties in preparing and gaining the necessary skills and insight that will allow them to successfully negotiate or mediate settlements and resolutions for their disputes and conflicts by providing facilitation services and hosting facilitation initiatives.

1 See Harold H. Saunders, We Need a Larger Theory of Negotiation:  The Importance of Pre-negotiating Phases, Negotiation Journal vol.1, no. 3. [return]

2 See Robert Fisher, Negotiating Inside Out, Negotiation Theory and Practice (Program on Negotiation Books, 1991).  [return]

3 See David Lax and James Sebenius, The Power of Alternatives or The Limits to Negotiation, Negotiation Journal, vol. 2, no. 1 [return]

4 See also Howard Raiffa's Mock Pseudo-Negotiations With Surrogate Disputants, Negotiation Journal, vol. 1, no. 2. [return]

5 BATNA, comes, of course, from Getting to Yes and William Ury's Getting Past No (Bantam Books, 1991). [return]

6 Christopher Mitchell and Michael Banks, Handbook of Conflict Resolution (Pinter 1996) [return]

7 Howard Raiffa, Post Settlement Settlements, Negotiation Journal, vol. 1, no. 1 [return]  See also Alvin Roth on Some Additional Thoughts on Post Settlement Settlements, vol. 1, no. 3.

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