A critical view of facilitating labor-management collaboration

Savage, Grant T

Labor-management group facilitation is a complex but increasingly necessary skill. Facilitators need both clear practice guidelines and an understanding of why those guidelines are legitimate. To meet these needs, this paper first provides a descriptive (structural-functional) framework for understanding the facilitator's role and the communicative practices on which it is based. A critique of this framework is then proposed using Habermas' theory of communicative action. From this theoretical critique, group decision making is viewed as both a negotiative and a dialogical process, entailing an expanded appreciation of the facilitator's role. In congruence with this theoretical stance, a set of directives for facilitating consensual decision making is proposed. A combined case and discourse analysis of two labor-management groups' decision-making processes illustrates the utility and implications of these directives.

Key words

Consensual Decision Making, Critical Theory, Facilitation

To conduct a conversation means to allow oneself to be conducted by the object to which the partners in the conversation are directed. It requires that one does not try to out-argue the other person, but that one really considers the weight of the other's opinion.... It is not the art of arguing that is able to make a strong case out of a weak one, but the art of thinking that is able to strengthen what is said by referring to the object.

- Hans-Georg Gadamer, 1975, p. 330

Introduction

Much of the collaborative rhetoric in the management field focuses on the synergy that can occur through the building of cross-functional teams-the creation of semiautonomous and autonomous work teams, and the participation of employee unions in management decisions via ownership or other power sharing arrangements. Each of these endeavors relies on some form of intra-organizational collaboration to coordinate the actions of employees. That coordination typically takes the form of meetings to the extent that organizational meetings "represent a primary means of communication and coordination within and across work units" (Niederman and Volkema, 1999, p 330). Team meetings, however, are fraught with potential problems:

An asymmetrical distribution of power (teams consisting of a mix of organizationally powerful and less powerful individuals) that leads to the domination of the powerful over the powerless even under the guise of seeking input and consensus. Consensus is the uncoerced agreement of all parties involved in a group decisionmaking process, whether task/project related or conflict related. Consensus does not assume perfect accord from the outset nor is it expedient agreement to end the process of evaluating alternate decision options. Rather, consensus is the agreement that results from a group's free, rational, uninfluenced and thorough consideration of alternative propositions.

Embedded hierarchical relations that impede the consensus process-for example, an organizational hierarchy that enables threatened middle managers to withhold or delay critical information or a decision process within the hierarchy so convoluted that joint initiatives are delayed or suppressed.

False consensus-a consensus based on intentionally or unintentionally distorted communication.

Unfortunately, as a result of these conditions, the outcome of many intra-organizational collaborations is a false consensus that too often results in alienation, distrust, and conflict. Avoiding and surmounting this problem by engaging in a critical dialogue is the primary focus of this paper. Creating the opportunity for such a dialogue is one of the great challenges facing facilitators.

Both the increasing demand for team-based decision making and the problems inherent in the team process have resulted in a need for group facilitators with highly developed skills. As important as skilled facilitators are, though, there is relatively little research on the "formal role of the organizational facilitator in preparing and executing meetings" (Niederman and Volkema, p. 330). Particularly lacking is research that would lead to useful guidelines for working facilitators.

Guidelines formulated specifically for facilitating consensual intra-organizational decision-making are hard to find. Perhaps one reason for this difficulty is because most of the research on consensual decision making (Destephen, 1983; Hill, 1976; Knutson, 1972; Knutson & Holdridge, 1975; Knutson & Kowitz, 1977) has relied on self-report measures of consensus gathered after a group has reached a decision. Moreover, even dynamic measures of consensus (Spillman, Bezdek, & Spillman, 1979) rely on self-report instruments administered while a group is making a decision. This line of research treats consensus as an important outcome of group discussion, but it does not directly examine how the process of discussion affects consensus. However, by applying a descriptive framework and a critical communication theory perspective to selected cases of labormanagement decision making, we derive and explicate a set of directives for facilitating consensual intra-organizational decision-making.

A DESCRIPTIVE FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING THE PROCESS OF FACILITATING

First, we establish the definitions of some terms common to facilitation that will be used throughout this discussion. These terms assume that consensual decision making often involves conflicts over tasks, processes, and other matters. Second, we articulate a descriptive framework for intra-organizational facilitation that focuses on its functions and how it is embedded within an organizational structure, e.g., bureaucracy.

Key Terms

Facilitation. The least intrusive form of third party intervention, facilitation typically involves a neutral or mutually trusted third party who focuses upon ways to diffuse hostilities between the parties and to help them become more conciliative in their communication. Simultaneously, the facilitator attempts to help the conflicting parties discuss their differences through a problemsolving process. The facilitator may help the disputants explore various solutions, but the two parties in the conflict decide what, if anything, will be done to resolve or manage the dispute.

Mediation. As a third party intervention, mediation often includes not only process intervention, but also content intervention. As such, mediation usually requires the neutral third party to meet separately with each disputant to discuss substantive issues and possible integrative solutions or compromises. As a result, the mediator helps the disputants to think through specific ways to resolve the conflict. Typically, the mediator also serves as a go-between, connecting the two or more conflicting parties, and thus helping to dampen the emotions that might erupt during face-to-face interactions. Again, however, the final decision rests with the conflicting parties.

Persuasion. In day-to-day language, persuasion is the process of convincing others. As applied to group facilitation and decision making, this ordinarily means that a particular solution, predetermined by the persuader, should be adopted. This process is directional and assumes that the persuader is success oriented from the outset and that a variety of techniques, including entreaty, logic, reasoning, and threat may be used to ensure success. In contrast to ordinary language usage, we refer to persuasion, within the context of group facilitation, from a narrower and more dialogical perspective. Following Johannesen's (1971) logic, persuasion may be viewed as a rhetoric that clarifies positions through the play of argumentation. Furthermore, we view the facilitator as using persuasion primarily to influence the process of group decision making.

A Functional Model of Intra-Organizational Facilitation

A facilitator can affect the orientation of a group (i.e., its internal process) and/or the group's relationship to organizational sub-systems and systems (i.e., its external process). At one time, much of the process-oriented research on decision making focused directly upon a group's internal process of communication (e.g., Fisher, 1970; see also Cragan & Wright, 1980), ignoring how external processes and even indirect internal processes might affect decision making. However, recent work in the fields of group decision making (Poole & Roth, 1989a, 1989b; Poole et. al, 1993; Poole & Holmes, 1995), mediation (Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993), labor-management negotiations (Friedman & Podolny, 1992; Friedman, 1994), and conflict resolution (Wall & Blum, 1991; Wall & Callister, 1995) highlights the importance of backstage interactions, network linkages between stakeholders, and the effects of technology on the group decision-making process. Consequently, we see now that understanding group decision making and facilitation requires attention to the whole process-both internal and external.

Facilitating internal processes includes two forms of intervention: (1) "direct" interventions during meetings and (2) "indirect" interventions after and/or before meetings. Direct interventions during meetings, by their very nature, affect group communication. Facilitators assess group interaction and, through their remarks, attempt either to guide or mediate the group's decision-making process. Indirect internal facilitation, on the other hand, may take many forms, from counseling individuals to mediating disputes between conflicting coalitions within a group. Even though this intervention takes place outside the meeting, it may still affect the decision-making process of the groups involved.

External process facilitation also encompasses two types of intervention: (1) "inward" interventions affecting group-stakeholder interactions and (2) "outward" interventions affecting group-organization interaction. "Inward" interventions may range from suggesting how a group gathers information from its stakeholders to directly mediating a group's feedback sessions with its constituents. In other words, this form of intervention affects both the downward flow of communication from and the upward flow to the group. "Outward" interventions affect both the upward and/or lateral flow of communication from the group and the downward and/or lateral flow of communication to the group. For example, the facilitator may act as a liaison-linking group "A" to group "B" in order to broaden group A's information base on a specific issue. Or the facilitator may help a group negotiate the implementation of a new work schedule within the organization, thus actively affecting the group's (and the organization's) decision making.

A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE FOR UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS OF FACILITATING

The descriptive framework for examining facilitating may be supplemented with critical communication theory. Habermas' theory of communicative action (1979, 1982, 1984) provides a useful theoretical basis for understanding and explaining the processes of facilitation and group decision making. Although volumes have been written on the theory of communicative action, the following discussion will serve our purposes.

Using Habermas' terms to describe the process, a facilitator, in the purest sense, is attempting to create an "ideal speech situation." Habermas describes the ideal speech situation as one that, essentially, ensures fair play and dialogue. In an ideal speech situation, the participants must:

Possess communicative competence - be capable of using and understanding the required language.

Understand the context of the discourse so as to relate to others appropriately.

Be free from any form of dominance or coercion so that they may speak truthfully, freely, and participate fully.

If a facilitator is able to establish an ideal speech situation, then he or she further attempts to bring about through that situation a dialogue of all the participants that will result in what Habermas terms "communicative action." Habermas characterizes communicative action as "whenever the actions of the agents involved are coordinated not through egocentric calculations of success but through acts of reaching understanding. In communicative action participants are not primarily oriented to their own individual successes . . ." (Habermas, 1984, pp. 285-86). Communicative discourse, then, is that which has as its ultimate goal mutual understanding, or consensus.

In contrast to communicative action, strategic action is that in which the actions of the agents involved are coordinated through "egocentric calculations of success" (Habermas, 1984, p.286). Strategic action has an explicit "success orientation" as opposed to the "understanding orientation" of communicative action. In essence, strategic discourse is concerned with "influencing the decisions of a rational opponent" (Habermas, 1984, p.285) while communicative discourse is concerned with understanding, harmony, and reaching consensus. It is clear, then, that from Habermas' perspective, a facilitator tries to create an ideal speech situation and through the appropriate intervention strategies helps the participants to engage in a communicative dialogue that results in consensual decisionmaking.

A COMMUNICATIVE AND STRATEGIC ACTION MODEL OF FACILITATION

Habermas' theory of communicative action suggests a number of modifications to the descriptive framework for facilitating consensual decisionmaking. Although a facilitator usually acts communicatively during interventions, some exigencies require strategic action-using persuasion and mediation-in order to effect a consensus decision. For Habermas, communicative action is desirable, while strategic action, because it is self- and/or success-oriented, is not. However, in a less than perfect world, we believe facilitators sometimes should act strategically in order to steer the group's decision-making process toward true consensus. Importantly, during these occasions the facilitator's strategic actions should be oriented toward directing the decision process, not toward influencing the decision outcome. Under these conditions, strategic actions by facilitators not only are probable, but also desirable.

Decision Making as Negotiation

The model of facilitation so far elaborated is somewhat incomplete because, for analytical purposes, the social actions used to describe various interventions have been treated as discrete processes. This atomized view is only slightly embellished by considering the varying purposes of and contexts for persuasive and mediating interventions. To further complement the model of facilitation, decision making must be perceived as a negotiative as well as a dialogical process. Two types of exigencies illustrate decision making as negotiation.

(1) Whenever a group is attempting to reach a consensual decision, it will necessarily employ what it believes are communicative actions. The facilitator can help this dialogical process along by ensuring that various exigencies (e.g., the internal-- direct interventions mentioned previously) do not sidetrack this intent. Sometimes, however, the group will engage in unconscious self-deception-- what Habermas calls systematically distorted communication-while making a decision. This disruption of the dialogical process of consensual decision making cannot, by definition, be facilitated solely by communicative actions. In such a case, the facilitator alone may believe that the group is acting irrationally (or, perhaps, arrives at this diagnosis after a decision has been made already). To intervene, the facilitator both must recognize the distorted communication and must be willing to reframe the process through which the group is making decisions. Such re-framing during a meeting will require the facilitator to act strategically in order to steer the group back toward communicative dialogue. In this intervention, the facilitator must achieve success-act persuasively-to change the decision making process (otherwise, of course, the intervention will be rejected).

However, a re-framing intervention occurring during the meeting may not adequately change the group's self-understanding of its decision-making process. Follow-up actions after the initial intervention may be necessary to help various group members see how their actions during the prior meeting may have blocked open discussion, prematurely closed discussion, or been otherwise misunderstood. For these types of problems, the facilitator may use various communicative actions to surface submerged conflicts among the group members that systematically distort the group's understanding of its own actions. And, of course, the group must again decide the issue if the intervention is to succeed. Clearly, this intervention negotiates the group's decision via either (a) disrupting decision making or reopening the decision process, (b) showing different members within the group how their interests are not being harmonized by the group's actions, or (c) seeking to harmonize their interests in the future.

(2) Although such intervention portrays the facilitator as playing a major role in negotiating a decision, many times the varied power relations inherent in the decision-making context are the impetus for negotiation. For example, in a labormanagement context, if a work-site committee wishes to discuss alternative work schedules, it cannot make any viable decisions without at least consulting the general manager. Such consultation may quickly lead to the committee making a proposal that it then negotiates with the manager. In essence, the committee does not make a single decision, but rather it engages in a process or series of decisions that take into account the power and preferences of the general manager.

This simple example illustrates a process which is often more intricate in practice. The general manager seldom has complete autonomy, and other stakeholders-such as a labor union, a particular division within the organization, or a faction within the committee's constituency-will certainly attempt to influence the committee's decision making. Under such circumstances, the facilitator may perform a variety of roles, from liaison to mediator. As a liaison, the facilitator can convey information to and from the committee, presenting the committee's proposal to stakeholders and feeding their preferences back to the committee. If the conflicting interests of stakeholders cannot be satisfied by the committee's decision, the facilitator may attempt to mediate the positions of the stakeholders vis-AL-vis the committee. Seldom, however, are the roles of the facilitator well defined, and facilitators will often find themselves performing a unique blend of roles within a specific decision making context.

In summary, relationships and negotiations with various stakeholder coalitions may influence a cross-functional team's decision making. These stakeholder coalitions within the organization might include:

Members within the cross-functional team; Other employees at the organization's work site; Organizational members engaged in cross-functional programs such as continuous quality improvement;

Divisions within the organization; and, possibly, The labor union's leadership and its rank-andfile members.

While this example is drawn from a labor-management context, its variety of coalitions and the need to negotiate among them is typical of the group decision-making process in any organization. The specific coalitions will be different, but they will exist, and the facilitator must recognize not only their existence but also how their relationships and negotiation processes may affect his or her efforts to aid the groups to reach consensus.

DIRECTIVES FOR FACILITATING CONSENSUAL DECISION MAKING

The model of facilitation based on reaching consensual understandings-communicative action-has many implications for practitioners and researchers. To illustrate these directives, two cases of labor-management decision making are analyzed. These two cases examine the decision making that occurred in two Quality of Working Life (QWL) work-site committees, the DR committee and the 0 committee. Each committee existed as part of a QWL program supported by a large midwestern city and a labor union local. The senior author served as a third-party facilitator for the program, and the DR and 0 committees were two of the five work-site committees that were visited on a regular basis (either every other week or monthly).

The QWL program paralleled but inverted the organizational structure of the city. The work-site committees were empowered to make decisions that directly affected their working conditions, but they could not violate city-, departmental-, or division-wide rules and policies. However, a work-site committee could suggest experiments to the higher level QWL committees so that changes could be implemented on a trial basis. Unlike the city bureaucracy, however, the higher level QWL committees did not initiate changes unless pressed by the work-site committees.

Work-site committees consisted of both fixed (for key management and union roles) and elected positions (for supervisory and non-supervisory employees). Generally, the work-site manager and assistant manager had fixed positions, as did the union steward and a designated union assistant. The elected positions were more variable in nature. Each committee set up guidelines for elections and determined what form of representation of the workforce should occur in the committee.

DIRECTIVES FOR FACILITATING INTERNAL PROCESSES

Four directives can help the process of facilitating internal processes: (1) avoiding multiple conversations, (2) clarifying frames of reference, (3) preventing premature closure of discussions, and (4) mediating differences of opinion before and after meetings.

Avoiding Multiple Conversations

As simple as it may sound, the committee should avoid multiple, simultaneous conversations. Although the role of regulating the committee's conversation usually falls in the hands of the chair of the committee, the facilitator must ensure that the committee's focus remains undivided. Such controlling actions remind the committee of the rules of procedure underlying the discussion; hence, these actions are oriented to reaching an understanding.

If multiple conversations are allowed to continue, the committee's consensus may be distorted. For example, during a meeting of the December DR committee that focused on flextime, the facilitator suggested that the committee table flextime discussion until more information was gathered about the workforce's interest in flextime. Immediately after this suggestion was made, VRG (the union steward) and BIL (an employee) began arguing over who held the chair position on the flextime subcommittee (neither one seemed to desire the position since a survey of employee opinion would be the subcommittee's responsibility).

While they were arguing, ALF (the manager) addressed the rest of the committee, questioning the practicability of a flextime program and concluding that the flextime discussion should be tabled until another work-site committee implemented a flextime schedule. Near the end of the meeting, the committee unanimously agreed to table discussion of flextime; as the facilitator learned at the next meeting, however, neither ALF nor VRG and BIL recognized that they agreed to table flextime discussion for different reasons.

Clarifying Frames of Reference

A well-accepted activity of the facilitator is to clarify frames of reference by engaging participants in a dialectical dialogue. Many misunderstandings are caused by people thinking they are talking either (a) about the same thing, when, in fact, they are discussing different things, or (b) about different things, when, in fact, they are conversing about the same thing. Although this seems to be a simple form of intervention, it is often difficult to detect discrepant frames of reference until a misunderstanding does arise, especially if participants interrupt each other or otherwise violate implicit rules for turn-taking.

For example, during the same DR committee meeting mentioned previously, VRG and DIK (chair of the committee and VRG's immediate supervisor) argued about the virtues of various types of flextime schedules. The transcript of their conversation indicates that they both agreed that flextime schedules in which employees did not have to notify the supervisor of their starting times were not practicable at the DR work site. VRG and DIK, however, did not mutually recognize this agreement because they continually overlapped their talk-simply put, they did not listen to each other. The facilitator should have intervened by summarizing their positions and asking if they agreed with those summaries; however, this was not done because it seemed apparent from the content of what they said that they were in agreement. This oversight suggests that facilitators should assess both the illocutionary force (what is done) and the content (what is said) in order to clarify frames of reference.

Preventing Premature Closure of Discussions

Perhaps the most important intervention that a facilitator can perform is to prevent premature closure of discussion. In short, the facilitator should rephrase decision proposals and test for consensus. This discourse should occur not only when a proposal is being considered positively, but also whenever a proposal is being discussed negatively by the group.

The December DR committee meeting again provides an example of the consequences of failing to intervene in this manner. Following DIK and VRG's exchange, BIL made a number of concrete suggestions regarding how flextime could be implemented. Even though DIK and VRG responded positively to his proposals, BIL's suggestions were ultimately discarded following ALF's remark that flextime was not working out at another work site. The facilitator intervened at that point by suggesting that the committee assess the employee desire for flextime. Although this intervention was innocuous per se, it served to undermine the support that had been expressed for BIL's suggestions and to support ALF's negative implications. This same intervention might have been more effective if (a) it had been prefaced with a summary of BIL's ideas, (b) BIL had been asked to validate the summary, and (c) the committee had been asked for an expression of support for or opposition to these "redefined" ideas. A dialectical intervention of that sort would possibly have kept BIL's ideas salient within the committee, furthering the concrete, positive examination of flextime by the committee.

Mediating Differences of Opinion Before and After Meetings

Facilitating communicative action by intervening before and after meetings usually is a two-step process: (a) Clarify the positions of each party in dispute, and (b) explore different approaches that may mediate the dispute. Often individuals or coalitions within a group will oppose an issue without clearly articulating the basis for their opposition during a meeting. To reduce personal antagonism, the facilitator should approach each party separately after the meeting in order to clarify the positions on the issue. These encounters require the facilitator to engage in a dialectical dialogue, similar to the action used to clarify frames of reference. If the disputing parties appear to be fairly close in their positions, the facilitator may meet directly with both parties in order to establish a common ground before the next group meeting. Often, however, the parties are far apart in their views, and the facilitator may need to meet a number of times with each party separately, laying the ground rules for future group discussions of the issue. Here, the facilitator engages in actions oriented to reaching an understanding. Such actions may be particularly needed when instrumental, issue-oriented conflicts have begun to produce expressive or procedural conflicts (or vice versa).

For example, during both the August and September meetings of the DR committee, RPH and ARP (supervisors) heatedly objected to considering flextime at the work site. VRG and DEN (union representatives) countered these objections in an equally emotional fashion. To restore some calm to the committee, the facilitator suggested that the focus of the dispute-a flextime schedule in use at the MR Work-site-should be examined more carefully by the committee. As a result, the DR committee asked the MR committee to discuss its flextime schedule. Although the MR committee refused to send a delegation to discuss flextime, it did invite the DR committee to visit the MR work site to collect information about the flextime schedule.

During the October meeting, a four-member task force consisting of BIL, DIK, RPH, and VRG was appointed to visit the MR plant, and the facilitator was asked to accompany the task force as a "neutral" observer. After this meeting, the facilitator met separately with BIL and VRG in order to gather their views on flextime. They expressed the opinion that (a) the MR flextime schedule was practicable and (b) RPH and ARP were opposed to flextime because of past abuses at the MR work site that no longer occurred. The facilitator also met with DIK about two weeks after the committee meeting to obtain his view of flextime. Surprisingly, DIK was fairly supportive of the idea, but he felt the flextime schedule practiced at the MR work site would not succeed at the DR work site. Moreover, he thought that any practicable schedule should be adopted on a work-crew basis, according to the desires of the supervisor and his crew. Also, he added, the supervisor should have the right to abolish flextime if he felt it was not working out.

Because of construction work needing their attention, DIK and RPH were not able to accompany VRG and BIL during a planned visit of the MR work site. BIL and VRG interviewed about 15 of the 20 people affected by the flextime schedule during this visit and gathered a very favorable picture of its operation. In order to "balance" VRG's and BIL's survey results, DIK and RPH arranged another visit to the MR work site.

As supervisors, DIK and RPH were particularly interested in how the upper management felt the MR flextime schedule was working, so they met with only the three top-ranking supervisory personnel. RPH made it very clear that he felt the crew he had worked fine, and he did not want to "fix it" if "it was not broken." This approach led to the disclosure that the present flextime schedule did create some problems; for example, since most employees opted to come in early, only "skeleton" crews worked in the late afternoon. After this meeting, I spoke with both RPH and DIK about the feasibility of flextime at the DR work site. RPH stated that he would not participate in any type of flextime schedule, but that if a practicable schedule-one in which supervisors would know a week ahead of time when employees would be starting work-could be introduced, he would not oppose its implementation.

The task force results were reported during the December committee meeting. As previously discussed, this meeting led to a fairly open and calm discussion of flextime, albeit a discussion that resulted in the tabling of flextime. Such a discussion would not have been possible without the clarification of positions and discussion of different possibilities that occurred outside of the committee meetings.

DIRECTIVES FOR FACILITATING EXTERNAL PROCESSES

The previous example illustrates the thin conceptual line between internal and external processes. The facilitative efforts concentrated on mediating the DR committee's conflict over flextime, yet these efforts led to the involvement of the MR work site. Because the MR committee and the personnel at the MR work site did not overtly influence the DR committee's decision making, it seems clear that the external process of negotiating a decision did not come into play. However, such negotiation processes usually do come into play whenever a group seeks input from its constituenvy and approval from the organization or through the labor-management program.

Facilitating group/constituent communication involves a number of steps: (a) identify the interests of different stakeholders, (b) explore differences and similarities among these interests, and (c) seek an overarching interest that harmonizes these multiple interests. Each group member represents a set of constituents with certain needs and desires. Only if the member knows the interests of his or her constituents, can that member truly make informed decisions within the group. Moreover, the group's very survival may hinge on constituents believing that the group makes a difference. Providing feedback and gathering preferences and ideas are thus important activities of members on the group. These activities can be facilitated, both within the group and within the constituency.

Beyond facilitating information flow, the facilitator may help the group establish more formal links with its constituency via subgroups and task forces. These subunits assure the group of firmer and more reliable links with its constituency. Yet, formal mechanisms for expressing and channeling the interests of its constituency do not, per se, ensure that a group will further those interests. Only if the group seeks an overarching interest that harmonizes seemingly competing interests will the group's constituency be fairly represented. Many of the techniques already discussed may be needed to effect such an overarching interest.

The 0 committee-which used brainstorming, employee surveys, subcommittee reports, and a consultant's feasibility study to decide upon a flextime schedule-exemplifies how the external-- inward processes of decision making may be facilitated. The 0 committee, with the interventions of ART (a facilitator), conducted a number of brainstorming sessions to identify issues of importance. Among those issues identified were tardiness, flextime, and cross-training. To gather more information on the flextime issue, ART encouraged the 0 committee to contact the MR committee which was working on a flextime experiment proposal at that time. This contact provided the impetus for the 0 committee to survey its hourly workforce constituency about flextime during June. Hence, ART's interventions helped the committee better realize its own interests.

The survey results showed that a majority of the hourly workforce favored some form of flextime, and to address this interest, the 0 committee formed a subcommittee to investigate the feasibility of flextime. The subcommittee, though favorably disposed toward flextime, did not produce any concrete proposals. Its recommendation, accepted by the 0 committee in early August, was to have a third party perform an extensive feasibility study.

A new facilitator, JIM, agreed to take on the third-party role in April. JIM met with many of the committee members to gather their input before presenting a proposal for the feasibility study in May. As one of his preliminary recommendations, JIM suggested that the committee create a new subcommittee on flextime. This subcommittee was formed in June after JIM presented the results of the feasibility study. The subcommittee-with JIM's guidance-again surveyed the 0 workforce during July and August. This second survey, moreover, included not only hourly employees but also salaried supervisors. The results of the survey showed that most supervisors and most employees favored a flextime schedule with a core time from 9 AM to 3 PM. Certainly, JIM's interventions not only helped the committee better understand its constituency's interests, but also provided the committee with a means to focus those interests upon a common goal.

Because of the positive information conveyed by the workforce, the 0 committee charged the flextime subgroup with drafting plans to implement flextime. JIM again lent his expertise to this effort. The draft plan was presented to the committee in late November; one major objection surfaced from supervisors regarding the supervision of employees during non-core times. Rather than having the schedule of the supervisor determined through the formula specified by the subcommittee, the supervisors insisted that management should retain this prerogative. This change was accepted at the next meeting in December. At the following meeting later in December, another change was also made: participation of a work unit in the flextime schedule would be at the discretion of the supervisor. Even though this essentially unchanged version of the flextime schedule was not implemented until May, the committee-with JIM's help-had recognized and had begun to achieve an overarching interest of its constituency.

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

Although facilitators may spend much of their time in meetings, interventions also often occur either before or after meetings. These acts of facilitating may include both mediation and persuasion. In other words, facilitators may engage in communicative or strategic actions, depending upon the exigencies they encounter, their skill, and their moral judgment. From the stand point of seeking consensual agreement, strategic actions are the most problematic since they require the facilitator to pursue interests that may be opposed by at least some group members. Nevertheless, strategic actions may help if the group enters into negotiative relationships with organizational or labor union stakeholders; moreover, such actions may be necessary if the group engages in systematically distorted communication. In short, in an imperfect world, strategic action is sometimes a necessary tool to ensure that decision-making teams actually engage in a communicative action process and end up with a true consensus as opposed to a false consensus.

Communicative actions, although grounded in the ideal speech situation, are also problematic in terms of their enactment, whether directed toward the internal or the external decision making processes of a group. To help the internal process, the facilitator may intervene so as to (1) avoid multiple, simultaneous conversations; (2) clarify frames of reference; (3) re-phrase decision proposals and test for consensus; and (4) clarify the positions of each party in dispute, and explore different approaches that may mediate the dispute. Similarly, the external process of decision making may be facilitated by (1) identifying the interests of different stakeholders, (2) exploring differences and similarities among these interests, and (3) seeking an overarching interest that harmonizes these multiple interests. While seemingly straightforward, each of the aforementioned interventions requires the facilitator to ground these actions in the ethic of seeking a consensual understanding.

One implication of this examination of facilitation is to underscore the difficulties that even carefully conceived and implemented attempts toward collaboration face within organizations with deeply embedded hierarchical structures and asymmetrical power relations. Imagine the frustration (and steep learning curve) an organization faces that attempts to equalize power relations and displace the reliance on hierarchy with collaboration-without the help of third-party facilitators!

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Grant T. Savage and Chadwick B. Hilton

Acknowledgements: Our thanks to the anonymous reviewers who sharpened our thinking on facilitation and critical theory and to Donald J. Cegala, Joseph Pilotta, and Don Ronchi who-at its inception-shared their wisdom in seeing this work to its fruition.

Grant T. Savage is the Richard Scrushy/ HealthSouth Chair and Professor in Healthcare Management. Professor Savage has written extensively on conflict, healthcare, and stakeholder management issues in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Health Care Management Review, and Hospital & Health Services Administration. He has co-authored five award winning papers, and published over 80 articles, chapters, and proceedings. He is a member of the Academy of Management, the International Association for Conflict Management, and the International Association for Business and Society. He has taught or conducted research on conflict, healthcare, and stakeholder management in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Grant received his B.A. from the University of Connecticut and an M.A. & Ph.D. from Ohio State University. Contact at: University of Alabama, College of Commerce and Business Administration, Management and Marketing Department, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0225; Phone: 205-348-2926; Fax: 205-348-6695; E-mail: [email protected]

Chadwick B. Hilton is the Director of International Business Programs and Associate Professor of Management in the College of Commerce and Business Administration. He has published extensively on reader-response to advertising copy, stylistics, and English language training in Japanese corporations in journals such as The Journal of Advertising Research, The International Journal of Advertising, The Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Business Communication, and The Journal of Business and Technical Communication. His degrees include an A.B., UNC Chapel Hill; an M.A., N.C. State University; and a Ph.D., University of Tennessee. Contact at: University of Alabama, College of Commerce and Business Administration, Management and Marketing Department, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0225; Phone: 205-3489432; Fax: 205-348-6695; Email: [email protected]

Associate Editor: Jean Watts

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