Geoff Ball & Associates
Enabling People to Work Together BETTER
Geoff Ball & Associates, 315 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301
Cell Phone 650-279-9461, ghball@aol.com

Home

CONFLICT RESOLUTION
- A field I've worked in since 1969 starting with school desegregation. I've facilitatated resolution related to: Interpersonal conflicts in a law firm, Lake Tahoe (TRPA) land use policies, school closures, city council member conflicts, turnaround in a Bank, and most recently, partner conflicts in a restaurant.
- The results have been significant improvement in these situations and in the relationships of the people.

Desired Outcomes in Conflict Resolution Strong relationships and powerful solutions that, to the extent creatively possible, address the interests of all parties. See Getting to Yes, Fisher, Ury and Patton
Keys to Good Outcomes Building a strong context of agreements on process, ground rules, and agenda, how decisions are to be made, recording everyone's ideas, enforcing (with the group's support) the ground rules agreed upon, facilitating getting and maintaining focus, encouraging breaks, building a foundation of agreements on which more agreements can be built, etc.  
Facilitator Mindset

Fairness to all; all have a chance to be heard; within the context of the meeting seek relative power equality to allow everyone's concerns to be heard and worked with.

 

 See Great! Meetings by Dee Kelsey and Pam Plumb

Guiding Principles for Contentious Community Issues
Developed over three meetings sponsored by P.A.G.E., a Palo Alto, California, Civic Engagement Organization. The meeting were held in the Spring of 2004. Each was attended by about 60 people.

Guiding Principle
Contrasting Principle
1. Be open and listen to other points of view Advocate for your point of view; seek to reduce the validity of other’s viewpoints
2. Define the problem. Define the problem to fit your solution
3. Be willing to compromise Seek to win
4. Better to get it right than to be right We are right
5. Build bridges toward common interests Build your advocacy group and develop political force for your desired outcomes.
6. Be sure all stakeholders are represented Hold out stakeholders likely to disagree with your positions and who have little power
7. Get complete facts and clarify assumptions Shape the facts to support your position; challenge the validity of the opposition
8. Build relationships in the process of solving the problem People are either supporters or enemies
9. Focus on the issue not on the person Demean the person to undercut their arguments for opposing positions
10. Don’t assume the obvious solution is the right solution Limit exploration of alternatives that might undermine your position
11. Solutions don’t have to be perfect; they are evolutionary and flexible Seek the perfect solution, especially if the search will delay an unwanted decision
12. Once a solution is reached, support it and move on. Find ways to reopen issues when you disagree with the decision made.
13. Focus on Common Good. There is no common good; only my needs and wants versus your needs and wants. I focus on MY needs and wants.

Download a Conceptual Model for Consensus Building

We developed this model for the 1985-6 Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Consensus Building Workshop as a way to address the concerns of the parties concerning efficacy and fairness of the proposed Consensus Building Workshop. This process was later mentioned as a excellent example of how BOTH economic concerns AND environmental concerns can be addressed when parties are willing to work really hard together.