Convergent Facilitation Materials

The Minnesota Child Custody Dialogue Group transcended deeply entrenched positions and a history of personal mistrust to resolve an issue that had seemed intractable for years. The one new factor was Convergent Facilitation, a three-step framework for group decision-making. First the dialogue group translated their differing views into deeper principles that all agreed on. Then those principles inspired new proposals. Finally, they used their newfound mutual understanding to craft a collaborative solution.

How can we ensure everyone wins? In this episode with Paul Kahawatte, you’ll get a small taste of the power of convergent facilitation, a process created by OWP podcast guest Miki Kashtan, and learn how to find the non-controversial essence behind what people desire. Using these tools, we can discover what people truly need and find a way to incorporate that into a solution that works for all.

This packet contains basic information for anyone interested in creating more collaboration in an organizational context. This ranges from a full introduction to organizational systems to a basic description of what interpersonal collaboration looks like within an organizational context.

In 'The Highest Common Denominator: Using Convergent Facilitation to Reach Breakthrough Collaborative Decisions', Miki introduces a novel decision-making process called Convergent Facilitation that builds trust from the beginning, surfaces concerns and addresses them, and turns conflicts into creative dilemmas that groups feel energized to solve together. This highly effective process has been used successfully around the world to resolve problems and teach people how to collaborate without sacrificing productivity.

In this fictional story, set in New Delhi, Menaka Neotia imagines a TV show aimed at fostering a nonviolent, integrative dialogue on the sensitive topic of migration in India. The story is inspired by the real-life struggles of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in Gazipur, Uttar Pradesh, and presents a way to address migration challenges constructively and collaboratively, avoiding common pitfalls of acting from anger at what’s not working, and instead mobilising based on love of the possible.