Tadeems@aol.com wrote about the group that stonewalled trying to discuss
the transition to a new, outside, female manager.
I'm very struck by your quandry -- I have faced similar situations before
(do regularly with one of the work teams I work with). I have a couple of
different thoughts. First, I agree with the responses that say there is
probably some grieving going on. But this grieving is manifesting as
resistance, in this case, passive-agressive resistance. One of the ways
around this for me is to not actually go around it but toward it in a way
which identifies organizational patterns at first, not trying immediately
to get to the emotionally wrought issues, which can be danced around more
easily because of the vulnerability it evokes. A great tool that I use is
Bob Crosby's survey feedback tool which gets at the issues of employee
involvement, decision-making, authority, and employee influence. It was
the first thing thing I did that actually worked to get a group of highly
introverted, kinsthetic machine operators to talk to me, because it
provided a non-threatening, structured forum for raising (and then
discussing) the issues facing the group. You can find out more about
Crosby's work (of which I am an fervent follower) in his two latest books
"Walking the Empowerment Tightrope" and "The Authentic Leader".
I would also be happy to discuss (off list) my experiences with groups
that stonewall (basically -- I don't play anymore). I agree that it sounds
like they had some level of conscious or unconscious agreement going into
he meeting about who had the spokesperson role, which I think is common.
I have finally accepted that it's not my job as a facilitator to
overfunction and drag a group through their process. If they want to be
victims and not step up to the plate in terms of accountability and
influence, then they get to experience the long-term impact of that
decision on productivity and morale. On the other hand, if they want my
feedback on the patterns I see, if they want to work through what's not
working, if they want to step into ownership and take responsibility for
transforming their team, then I bring all of who I am with compassion,
clarity, and the systemic skills I have so that they can determine the
problems and the solutions -- that is what developing an LO means to me,
and being a facilitator within one demands.
Good luck!
Genna Southworth
Genna @ Darex.com
--Genna Southworth <genna@darex.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>