Cases: Solving problems & creating common futures
At a premier financial institution in San Juan, Puerto Rico, we facilitated a collaborative year-long process to resolve a conflict between two organizations. The consultation included conducting interviews with members of both organizations, discussing results of the interviews and making plans with representatives from both organizations to prioritize the problems to be solved, facilitating working groups to develop solutions to the problems identified, conducting workshops in conflict management, and orchestrating and facilitating a set of large group meetings to agree on solutions, and make follow up plans to continue implementing the changes agreed-on. Results from this effort included a joint marketing implemented by both organizations and a noticeable reduction in complaints and negative comments from one organization about the other as reported by the CEO.
At a non-profit community organization in East Boston, we worked with its Board of Directors using the problematic moment approach (PMA). The PMA helps a group analyze particularly difficult moments marked by silences or din, which reveal something the group cannot talk about or a direction it does not want to explore. By replaying and discussing these videotaped moments in the group, the unconscious group assumptions and beliefs become accessible to analysis and to new possibilities for action.
To read more about this intervention, please refer to CGO Insights #19, Enhancing Working Across Differences with the Problematic Moment Approach, Holvino, E., & Cumming, J. 2003.
At a financial institution in the U.S., we facilitated a process for an employee network of women of color to address the dissatisfactions that were hindering their working together and the accomplishment of their goals. After interviewing a representative sample of members of the network and discussing the findings, we facilitated a dialogue within and across groups. This dialogue revealed the different meanings the African American, Asian, and Latina women attributed to skin color and activism. These differences were creating judgments across racio-ethnic-gender groups and preventing involvement and commitment to their common goals.
