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國際引導者協會理事主席貝恩（Kimberly Bain）專訪, 原文出自於EMBA雜誌2015年5月345期

會議中，大家一片沈默；討論時，天馬行空沒有交集；做決策時，則是火藥味十足，與會者彼此堅持自己的方案。
這是今天很多會議中常見的畫面。透過好的引導（facilitation），則可以協助解決這些問題。
「今天的企業界，複雜無所不在，因此，在做決策時，引導就越來越重要了。」貝恩（Kimberly Bain）說。她表示，企業主管可以透過引導式的領導技巧，協助團隊激盪想法，凝聚共識，提升參與。

貝恩是國際引導者協會（International Association of Facilitators）理事主席。她是加拿大人，擁有二十幾年豐富的引導經驗，曾協助許多企業、政府單位，以及非營利組織進行各種會議的引導和衝突調解。

以下為貝恩接受ＥＭＢＡ雜誌專訪摘要：

問：有些主管可能會說，我開會時，常問大家有沒有什麼意見，但是大家都沉默不語。這和你所提到的引導，有什麼不同？

答：蒐集資訊、諮詢和引導，是不一樣的。如果你問大家，最近大家的業務進展如何？那是蒐集資訊；如果你說，某件事我想這麼做，你們有什麼看法？那是諮詢；如果是引導者，他會說，我們現在的課題是這樣，請大家都貢獻點子，來發展解決做法。你們覺得我們可以怎麼做？

要區分一個主管是否是個引導型領導人，重點在於，他不會先說出自己的想法，而是先聽團隊成員表達意見，來引發他的想法和意見。他了解，團隊的智慧可以協助發展成更好的決策。

畢竟，對比較資淺的人來說，很難在會議上說：「總經理，我覺得你的想法是錯的，我有一個更好的辦法。」但這個年輕人可能有一個創意，可以引發好決策。因此，應該讓團隊成員先表達。

當然，領導人不可能永遠都採用引導式的領導風格，有些時候必須直接做決策。也許在一個會議中，他會同時運用三種風格：收集資訊、諮詢大家的意見，以及引導大家討論。主要是看討論的事情本質而定。

問：會議中，的確有人會習慣不發一語。所以，要如何引導他們開口說話？

答：要記住一點，不是每一個人風格都一樣。有些人是你一問問題，他就想立刻說出答案；有些人會先身體往後一靠，想一想再說話；有些人則是需要先寫下來看一看，再提出看法。因此，你必須確保你的方式滿足大家的風格。如果你只單純丟出一個問題，希望有人提出意見，你會發現，從頭到尾都只聽到同樣五個人的聲音；其他人都沒有說話。

因此，你需要採取不同的做法。有很多不同的技巧，例如，提問之後，要大家寫下答案，然後說出自己寫的內容。這會讓那些想要立刻說答案的人能滿足，那些需要時間想想的人也可以滿足，害羞的人也可以滿足。

問：在引導討論時，有些人提出的想法可能非常不切實際，或沒有進入狀況。如何能讓討論氣氛正面、有生產力，又不會被這些意見所絆住？

答：一個重要的原則就是，如何問問題。如果你只是問一個開放的問題，而沒有經過思考，例如你問，我們該怎麼做？就會得到非常歧異的答案：有些人會談得非常細節，有的人則是在雲端思考。這就很難把每一個人整合在一起。

問題必須經過設計，才可以引導討論，讓討論聚焦。舉例來說，假如會議的主題是，因應工廠安全新法規，公司應該怎麼做。引導型的領導人會說，政府有這些新規定，我們必須在三個月內做到，我們的預算是這樣，根據這三項原則，我們應該優先進行的事項是什麼？

因此，這是透過架構問題（frame the question）來思考，讓大家的討論有共同的方向。在這個前提下，有些人就算提出一些瘋狂的想法，也不是什麼壞事。因為有時候，這可以顛覆思考，也會激發其他人的想法。

問：腦力激盪和創意很重要，但是對企業來講，如何決定採用哪一個方案也很重要。有沒有什麼技巧，可以幫助做更好的決定？

答：可以先進行一輪對話，例如，問大家，我們可以怎麼做，在現有的預算下，如期做到符合新法規的規定？然後，再進一步問問題，逐漸聚焦在某幾個選項上。這是先發散（divergent），再收斂（convergent）的過程。

不要讓會議停留在發散的階段，然後領導人把資訊帶走，自己做決定。因為這麼一來，其他人就沒有辦法學習到決策背後的思考。事實上，這個思考的流程會幫助執行順利推動。因此，發散之後，領導人應該協助團隊進行收斂。例如，協助團隊將這些方案分類，並找出每一類的優點和缺點，然後逐漸往執行的方向發展。

問：在會議中，如何協助建立共識？

答：共識不是一個點，而是一個連續（continuum）。一端是像投票這樣，只要有百分之五十，再加一，就是共識，這是低度共識；另一端是高度共識：每個人都百分之百的同意，才算共識。大多數的會議則居於這兩者中間。有些人會說，這不是我最喜歡的方案，但是我可以接受。如果組織要追求百分之百的共識，有時必須讓這個解決方案笨一點（dumb down），到達每個人都接受的地步，但這往往不是最好的方案。

例如使命宣言，如果每個人都必須同意每個字，會花太多時間，而且可能這個使命宣言並不是最好的。所以只要大家說，這個方向和意思，是我可以接受的，那就可以了。

＊完整精彩文章請見：EMBA雜誌345期「運用引導，激盪好決策」

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Facilitating good decisions

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Interview with Kimberly Bain, Chair of the International Association of Facilitators

When the meeting opened everyone was silent, the discussion was disconnected, participants insisted on their own agendas and decision-making became fiery.  Meetings today are often a scene like this.  Facilitation can help solve this problem.

“As today’s business world becomes increasingly complex, facilitation becomes increasingly essential for making good decisions,” remarks Kimberly Bain, Chair of the International Association of Facilitators.

With facilitative leadership skills business executives can support teams to generate ideas, build consensus and enhance participation.

Kimberly is Canadian and has over twenty years of facilitation experience assisting companies, government bodies and non-profit organizations using many different types of meeting facilitation and conflict mediation methods.  

The following questions and answers are a few excerpts from EMBA magazine’s interview with Kimberly Bain.

Q: When executives ask meeting participants if they have any comments, their questions are often met with total silence.  How would facilitation make a difference for this situation?

A: Asking for information, advice and facilitation are not the same thing.  If you ask everyone “how’s your business doing?” that’s asking for information.  If you ask “I want to do something a certain way, what do you think about that?” that’s asking for advice.  A facilitator would say “this is the problem we’re faced with, please everyone contribute your ideas so that we can find a way to solve it.”

Facilitative leaders are distinctive because they wouldn’t say their own point of view first, but would instead first listen to the group member’s views and try to stimulate their thoughts and opinions.  A facilitative leader understands that better decisions come from a group’s collective wisdom.

Relatively junior members of the meeting would have difficultly saying “General Manager, I think your idea is wrong, I have a better way.”  But those junior members may have an idea that would lead to a good solution.  So we should create a way for group members to express themselves.

Of course leaders can’t always use a facilitative leadership style, sometimes a decision must be made right away.  A leader could use three different styles in a meeting, each one with a different function:  to collect information, to seek advice, or to facilitate discussion.  The style used depends on the purpose of the discussion.

Q: There’s people in meetings who are simply accustomed to not say a word.  How do you facilitate them to speak?

A: Not everyone has the same style.  Some people would give a response as soon as you ask them a question; some would first lean back and think a moment before speaking; and some need to write the question down before giving their opinion.  So your approach should be appropriate to everyone’s style.  If you simply throw out a question, hoping that someone will give their opinion, you’ll soon discover that from start to finish you’ve heard the same five people’s voice and no one else in the group has spoken.

Your different approaches are needed to talk with different people.  There are many different techniques to use as well.  For instance, after asking a question, invite everyone to write down their answers and then to say what they’ve written.  This will satisfy both those who want to say an answer right away and those who need time to think.

Q: Sometimes when facilitating discussion, participants can have ideas that are either unrealistic or unrelated.  How do you keep discussion atmosphere positive, productive, and not derailed by such comments?

A: How to ask questions is an important principle.  If you ask an open question such as “how should we do something?”  You’ll get very divergent responses: some people will respond with a lot of detail while others may have their head in the clouds.  This makes it difficult to bring everyone together.

A question needs to be designed to facilitate and to focus a discussion.  For example, if the meeting theme is “how should the company apply the new factory safety regulations” a facilitative leader would explain that “the government has these new regulations which we must implement within three months, within our budget and based on these three principles; so which items should we prioritize implementing first?”

By framing the question you allow everyone’s discussion to have a shared direction.  In this context, some people may raise crazy ideas, which is fine.  Because sometimes this can turn our thinking around and inspire other people’s ideas.

Q: Brainstorming and creativity are important, but how can a company choose which idea to use?  Is there a technique to help make better decisions?

A: You can begin with dialogue, by asking everyone “what can we do to achieve compliance with the new regulations within our budget and schedule?”  Then ask further questions to gradually focus on a few options.  This is a process of moving the group from divergent to convergent thinking.

Don’t let the meeting stay in a divergent stage and let leaders take the information away and make decisions on their own.  When that happens the group has no way of knowing the considerations that went into the decision-making.  The process of moving from divergent to convergent thinking will also  enable smoother implementation.  Following divergence, leaders ought to help the group converge their thinking by, for example, classifying the options, identifying the advantages and disadvantages of each, and then gradually developing the thinking towards implementation.

Q: How is meeting consensus built?

A: Consensus is not a point, it’s a continuum.  A low degree of consensus would be like a majority vote of fifty percent plus one, whereas a high degree of consensus would be when everyone agrees one hundred percent.  Most meetings need something in between the two extremes.  This requires people to accept a decision that is not their favorite.  If an organization wants to achieve a hundred percent consensus, they would need to revise their solution to the extent that everyone can accept it, but that’s often not the best solution.  For instance to get everyone to agree to every word of a mission statement would take a lot of time and may not produce the best result.  So as long as everyone can say that they accept the statement’s basic direction or meaning, then that’s good enough.

See the complete article at EMBA magazine edition 345 “運用引導，激盪好決策”