I have joined the Board of Directors for a new organization set up by our
provincial government. A colleague and I have been charged with the task of
hiring a facilitator to help the Board in its initial Strategic Planning
process. At this point, we are just in the process of being incorporated. We
do not have any staff or real estate or equipment. We are about to advertise
for a CEO.
I am looking at several highly experienced facilitators who seem to fall
into two distinct groups. The first group has extensive knowledge of the
field our organization will be working in, and come from well established
consulting organizations that dominate the market -- not exactly in this new
field, but in a somewhat related field.
The second group consist of people who have an excellent track record as
facilitators working with many different types of organization, but have
little direct experience with our particular field.
The first group have some real advantages. Their knowledge of our field can
be seen as an advantage. The board is made up of people with tremendous
experience in many fields, but we are not working professionals in the field
(and are not expected to be). We do have members with first hand knowledge
of the field as service recipients. Knowledgeable guidance from one of these
facilitators could be just what we need. The potential difficulty that I see
is that these facilitators show many signs of being prescriptive, and
directive. What I read into their proposals is that they intend to tell us
(the board) what the important issues are. They might even bring a
pre-written strategic plan which they can whip out if ours does not meet
their standards. I may be exagerrating slightly here, but this is the gist
of my impression.
It has always been my view that the facilitator manages the process, but
leaves the content aspect to the participants. My fear is that one of these
facilitators may lead us to adopt a traditional model and cause us to miss
the opportunity to come up with an innovative approach that is superior to
anything that now exists.
The second group appear to be much more flexible and non-prescriptive, but
the process could suffer from lack of field knowledge throughout the
participant group. (We do have the option of bringing in some field experts
to provide information and suggestions. On the other hand, with a
facilitator of this type, we would have a better chance of gaining new
insights into the the requirements, and coming up with a more appropriate
organization.
Any suggestions will be appreciated by direct E-mail or through the list.
I'll summarize what I receive.
Brock Vodden
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H. Brock Vodden
Vodden Consulting
"Where People and Systems Meet"
Ontario, Canada
brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca
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--Brock Vodden <brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>