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Extreme Facilitation picks up where other books on the topic leave off to present a revolutionary method that helps large, unwieldy, adversarial, and apparently dysfunctional groups achieve consensus and reach objectives on divisive and contentious issues no matter how long the group has been struggling. Throughout the book, expert facilitator Suzanne Ghais shows how extreme facilitation - which puts on the emphasis on creativity, flexibility, and customization - can change how group members interact with one another and how participants view the issues even in the most challenging and exceptionally difficult situations. Extreme Facilitation covers the preparatory phases of the process, including assessment, convening, and contracting. Ghais also offers vital information on process design and tips for handling situations that many facilitators find particularly challenging.
From the Inside Flap
Extreme Facilitation picks up where other books on the topic leave off, to present a revolutionary method that helps large, unwieldy, adversarial, and apparently dysfunctional groups achieve consensus and reach objectives on divisive and contentious issues no matter how long the group has been struggling.
Throughout the book, expert facilitator Suzanne Ghais shows how extreme facilitation—which puts the emphasis on creativity, flexibility, and customization—can change how group members interact with one another and how participants view the issues even in the most challenging and exceptionally difficult situations. Extreme Facilitation covers the preparatory phases of the process, including assessment, convening, and contracting. Ghais also offers vital information on process design and tips for handling situations that many facilitators find particularly challenging.
This groundbreaking book offers suggestions for the facilitator who must cultivate a strong presence, trustworthiness, and creativity, and have a clear understanding of the group's goals, needs, culture, and external conditions, such as pressures, requirements, and constraints. The extreme facilitator draws on a wide range of techniques that are driven by the needs of the group, not by the techniques themselves. To be truly effective, the facilitator must call on all of the group's physical, intellectual, emotional, intuitive, creative, and spiritual capacities.
Extreme Facilitation will help both experienced facilitators and those new to the process become more confident and competent when faced with the most daunting challenges.
From the Back Cover
BECOME AN Extreme Facilitator
"Extreme Facilitation is the next-generation book on facilitating successful meetings. Based on Ghais' extensive experience as a facilitator, from corporate boardrooms to unruly public meetings, the book presents highly useful approaches and strategies for unleashing the creativity of both facilitators and groups. Extreme Facilitation is a resource for both novices and experienced facilitators for designing customized meetings, bringing out the best in participants, and learning how to be centered under trying circumstances. I highly recommend it."
—Christopher Moore, mediator; author,The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict
"Provocative, realistic, and cutting edge! This book should be in the hands of policy makers and practitioners alike."
—John Paul Lederach, professor of international peacebuilding, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame; author, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace
"Extreme Facilitation is essential reading for anyone interested in becoming a first-rate facilitator."
—Bernie Mayer, partner, CDR Associates; author, Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution
About the Author
Suzanne Ghais is program manager at the internationally renowned conflict resolution organization CDR Associates. She has facilitated a wide variety of group processes in the organizational and public-policy arenas. She has worked with large and small corporations, government agencies at all levels, industry and business associations, educational and health care institutions, and nonprofit organizations.
