Ground Rules Effective Groups
Roger Schwarz
Roger Schwarza.Associates, inc.
Ground Rules for Effective Groups
Roger Schwarz
Are you a member of a group that isn't reaching its potential? Why can some groups bring i.people together, tackle difficult issues, and produce excellent results, while other groups can't? Even when a group has clear goals and talented and motivated members, it can still be ineffective. One reason is ground rules. Many effective groups have explicit ground rules that guide their behavior. When group members use these ground rules, they improve working relationships, improve group member satisfaction, improve the quality of their decisions, increase the commitment of members to follow through on those decisions, and decrease the time needed to effectively implement the decisions.
In this article, I describe a set of nine ground rules that your group or team can use to work more effectively. The ground rules work for all kinds of groups— executive teams, boards, work teams, committees or task forces, union-management teams, and groups with
Roger Schwarz is an organizational psychologist and president and founder of Roger Schwarz & Associates, Inc., a consulting
JUL       firm that helps groups, organizations, and communities use facilitative skills to create fundamental change. Roger serves as consultant, facilitator, and coach to numerous i B      corporations, governments, and nonprofit organizations, and he speaks to various organizations about facilitative leadership and facilitation. Roger helps groups improve their effectiveness and deal with high-stakes difficult conversations. He is the author of The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches, New and Revised Edition {San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 2002). lb learn more about Roger Schwarz 6c Associates, you can visit www.schwarzassociates.com or call 919.932.3343.
members from more than one organization. The ground rules are from The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches, New and Revised Edition, by Roger Schwarz (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 2002).
The Core Values and Assumptions
The ground rules are based on four core values: valid information, free and informed choice, internal commitment, and compassion.1 Groups need valid information to effectively solve problems and make decisions. When you share valid information, you share all the relevant information that you have about an issue, including your thoughts and feelings about how the conversation is going. You share your point of view in such a way rhar others can understand the reasoning rhar led you to reach your conclusions. Ideally, valid information can be independently confirmed. This means that the information is specific enough that someone else can determine for himself or herself whether the information is valid.
With free and informed choice, group members make their decisions based on valid information, not on the pressures of others inside or outside the group. Within the group's mission, group members can set their own objectives and the methods for achieving them. Making free and informed choices based on valid information increases the likelihood of gaining internal commitment. Decisions make sense because they are based on the best possible information and the true viewpoints of each member. With internal commitment, each member feels personally responsible for the decision and is willing to support the decision, given his or her role. With compassion, you temporarily suspend judgment to understand others who have differing views. You have a genuine concern for others' needs as well as your own. When you act with compassion, you infuse the other core values with your intent to understand, empathize with, and help others.
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Four assumptions underlie the ground rules: (1) I have some relevant information, and other people also have relevant information; (2) each of us may see things the others do not; (3) differences are opportunities for learning; and (4) people are trying to act with integrity, given their situation.
With these four assumptions, you become curious about what others know that you don't, open to exploring and learning from conflicts instead of trying to control and win them, and more generous in thinking about what motivates others to act differently from you.
If you use the ground rules without the underlying core values and assumptions, the ground rules become just another technique, destined to become the management fad-of-the-month. But with the core values and assumptions, the ground rules become a powerful, values-based approach for fundamentally increasing group effectiveness.
The Ground Rules
The Skilled Facilitatot Ground Rules for Effective Groups describe specific behaviors that improve a group's process.2 They provide more guidance than procedural ground rules such as "start on time and end on time" or relatively abstract ground rules such as "treat everyone with respect" or "be constructive."
Ground Rules for Effective Groups
| !   Test assumptions and inferences.
Share all relevant information.
Q Use specific examples and agree on what important words mean.
Explain your reasoning and intent,
| Focus on interests, not positions.
| Combine advocacy and inquiry.
Jointly design next steps and ways to test disagreements.
Qj Discuss undiscussable issues.
I Use a decision-making rule that generates the level of commitment needed.
Ground Rule One: Test Assumptions and Inferences
The first ground rule is test assumptions and inferences. When you assume something, you take for granted that it is true without verifying it. When you infer something, you draw conclusions about what you do not know based on things that you do know. For example, Jim, a group leader, observes that Hank, although productive, has considerably more work than any other group member. To lighten Hank's workload, Jim begins transferring some of Hank's work to other members. One day, in a team meeting, Jim says to Hank, "Hank, your group's been working really hard and doing good work, but the analyses have been slowing your group down. I'm going to give Donna's group the weekly sales figures to analyze. You won't need to do it." Hank replies with some sarcasm, "Thanks a lot. We bust our guts to fix others' mistakes and we end up paying for it." Jim responds, "You're not paying for it. I appreciate the hatd work your group has done. I'm giving you some slack. Now, here's how I'd like to shift the work to Donna. . ." Jim had assumed Hank would know why he was trying to lighten Hank's workload, and Hank had incorrectly inferred from Jim's statement that Jim was dissatisfied with his wotk. Furthermore, Jim did not test his assumption with Hank, and Hank did not test his inference with Jim; thus, neither could find out that he was incorrect.
You make inferences so often and so quickly that you are probably not aware that you are making them. When you don't test your inferences and assumptions with the people about whom you are making them, you simply act on them as if they are true. As a result, you may be basing your actions on a set of conclusions that are completely flawed.
Testing inferences generates valid information that you can use to make informed choices. Before reacting to someone or making a decision based on something you assumed or inferred, determine whether it is correct. Jim could have said to Hank, "I want to lighten your workload because I think you've got too much to do. I don't want you to misinterpret the reassignments. I assume you know that I think your work is excellent. Do you know that?" If Hank did not agree, he could have said, "Jim, when you said you were removing some of my duties, I thought that you were dissatisfied with my performance. Was I right or not?"
2 Ground Rules for Rffcciivc Groups
Ground Rule Two: Share All Relevant Information
This ground rule means that you share all the televant information you have that might affect how the group solves a problem or makes a decision. Sharing relevant information ensures that all team members have a common base of information on which ro make Informed choices and generate commirment. When people make decisions and later find our that others have withheld relevant informarion from them, rhey feel thar they were prevented from making an infotmed choice. They may then fail to follow thtough on the decision, may implement the decision in a haphazard or half-hearted way, or may even formally withdraw rheir agreemenr.
Sharing rclcvanr information means that all group membets participate in the conversation. If you don't have any relevant information to share—or if you don't have an opinion—then say so, rarher than remain silent and have orhcrs guess why you're quiet.
Sharing relevant information includes sharing information that does not suppott your preferred position. Suppose that you ate a member of a top management team deciding how to resrructure its organization and move into a new facility. You are the head of one manufacturing ptocess and want to maintain your position. Yet you also know that in the new facility, the different manufacturing processes can be easily merged for greater efficiency. Here, sharing all relevant informarion means telling the group about the increased efficiencies, even though doing so may reduce your chances of obraining the position you want.
Your feelings are also relevant information to shate. For example, you might say to a co-worket, "You said that you would have the sales projections this week, and now you're saying It will take two more weeks. I'm annoyed because that will make us miss the project deadline,"
In difficult conversations, there is a significant gap between what you say and what you think and feel. The following example shows how group membets withhold relevant information. The right column shows the conversarion berween Paula and Ted; the left column shows Paula's rhoughrs and feelings as she talks with Ted. Paula does not share wirh Ted all the relevant information in her left column. At the end of the conversation, Paula thinks to herself, Why didn't you use the information I gave you? I've got to get you to understand what you've done. Yet, by withholding her concerns,
she contributes to Ted's not understanding and increases her own frustration.
Withholding Relevant Information
Paula's Thoughts and Feelings
/ thought it was abysmal; I wanted to crawl under my chair at the meeting. I had three others tell me it was a waste of their time.
Does he really believe it went OK, or is he just trying to put a good spin on it? Nitpicky! You couldn't answer some basic cost questions.
I don't understand why you didn't emphasize the need for the project. The team won t approve a project if they can t get answers to some basic questions.
I don't want to wait while this project dies on the vine. Besides, my reputation is at stake here, too.
I hope the team doesn't think I'm responsible for your not having the answers to those questions. Why didn't you use the information I gave you? I've got to get you to understand what you've done.
The Conversation
Paula: How do you think the presentation to the senior management ream went yestetday?
Ted: I think it went OK, although there were some rough spots. Some of those execs can teally get nitpicky.
Paula: We've got some really imporrant reasons for doing it. Do you rhink rhe ream will support the project now, or do you rhink maybe we need to give rhem more answers?
Ted: I rhink we're in OK shape. A couple of rhe members came up to me afterward and said they appreciated the presentation. I think we should just wait and see.
Paula: Maybe, but I think we might want to give them some mote information.
The point is not that Paula should share her thoughts and feelings exactly as they appear in the left column. To be effective, Paula would share the relevant information (and also use the other ground rules). She could begin by saying, "Ted, I have some concerns about the presentation you did yestetday. I'd like to give you some specific examples about what concerned mc and get your reactions. OK?"
Ground Rules for affective Groups 3
Ground Rule Three: Use Specific Examples and Agree on What Important Words Mean
Using specific examples and agreeing on what important words mean is one way of sharing relevant information, generating valid data, and creating a common understanding. When you give specific examples, you name people, places, things, and events. Unlike general statements, specific examples enable other members to determine independently whether your examples are valid.
For example, if you make the general statement, "1 think some of us are not doing their share of the work," other group members cannot determine whether the statement is valid. They cannot observe who "some of us" are; neither can they directly observe whether someone is "not doing their share of the work." As a result, the people that you are referring to may incorrectly infer that you are not talking about them, and the people that you are not referring to may incorrectly infer that you are talking about them. In contrast, if you say, "Selina and Joe, I did not receive your section of the report. Did you complete and send it?" Selina and Joe can validate whether or not they did their work. Other members can determine whether the statement is valid by directly observing whether they received Selina and Joe's section. If Selina and Joe agree that they did not complete their work, then they and the group can engage in a more productive discussion about why this occurred and its impact on the group.
You may be concerned that if you name names in the group, others may feel that you're putting them on the spot (or you may feel that way). Using the ground rules involves changing the way you think. Here, this means shifting from thinking of it as putting people on the spot to thinking of it as giving people a chance to say whether they see the situation differently or whether, perhaps, you are misinformed. Another way to think about specific examples is that they help people agree on what important words mean. When team members use the same word to mean different things, they may think they agree with each other when they don't. Suppose your group decides to make some decisions by consensus. But to some members consensus means that a majority of people support the decision, while to others it means that everyone supports it. The first time your group makes a decision that has majority but not unanimous support, it will learn that it has not agreed on the meaning of consensus.
One way to determine whether all group members are using a word to mean the same thing is to ask them the first time the word is used. You can say, "You used the word consensus. To me, consensus means unanimous support and not majority agreement. In practice, it means that everyone in the group can say that they will do whatever their role requires to implement the decision. It doesn't mean that people have to be silent about their concerns. It does mean saying something like, 'even though I have these concerns, I support the decision sufficiently to implement it.' How does your definition differ from mine, if at all?"
Ground Rule Four: Explain Your Reasoning and Intent
When you do not explain your reasoning, the people you are talking with often provide their own explanations of your behavior; unfortunately, their explanations may be very different from yours. Using this ground rule means explaining to others what led you to make the comment you made, ask the question you asked, or take the action you took. Reasoning and intent are similar but different. Your intent is your purpose for doing something. Your reasoning is the logical process that you use to draw conclusions based on data, values, and assumptions. Explaining your reasoning and intent includes making your private thinking public. It enables others to see how you reached your conclusions and to ask you about places in your reasoning where they reason differently. If you are trying to control the conversation and have your point of view triumph, fully explaining your reasoning is a problem because it enables others to point out flaws in your reasoning, which reduces the chances that you will prevail. However, if you are using the values and assumptions underlying the ground rules in order to learn, explaining your reasoning and intent provides opportunities to learn where others have different views and where you may have missed something that others see.
Suppose you are talking with Jack, one of your peers, who is directing a project that will benefit your group. He says to you, "I really need one of your people dedicated to this project full-time." You are reluctant to do this because you have a deadline and need all of your staff to meet it. Rather than simply saying to Jack, "Sorry. I can't spare anyone full-time," you might start by saying something like "I have a project due next month,
4 Ground Rules for Effective Groups
and I need input from all of my staff to complete it. Giving you a person full-time will make it difficult for me to get everyone's input."
Ground Rule Five Focus on Interests, Not Positions
Focusing on interests is another way of sharing relevant information.5 Interests are the needs and desires that people have in regard to a given situation. Solutions or positions are the ways that people mccr their interests. In other words, people's interests lead them to promote a patticular solution or take a patticular position.
An effective way for members to solve problems is ro begin by sharing their own inrerests. Unforrunarely many groups begin by ralking about solurions or positions. For example, if the group is trying to solve the problem of when to meet, one member may start by saying, "I suggest we meet every other Monday at 7:30 a.m." Another may respond, "I think that we should meet on the second day of each month." Positions like these do not help the group identify each member's real needs and desires. Here, the person who suggested meeting every other Monday at 7:30 a.m. was interested in meeting early in rhe morning, before some important customets would call. The petson who wanted to meet the second day of each month was intetested in meeting immediately after a relevant biweekly compurer report became available. Each took a position that met his or her individual interests.
The problem wirh solving problems by focusing first on positions is that people's positions are often in conflict, even when their inreresrs are compatible. This happens because people tend to offet positions that meet their own interesrs bur do not take into account other people's interests. In the meeting example, each member's solution was rejected because it failed to meet the other person's inrerests. Had rhe members discussed inrerests, either one may have been able to offer a solution rhat satisfied both.
One way to think about interests is as criteria that need to be met in order solve the problem in a way that people will support. To help the group focus on interests rather than positions, you might begin by asking each member to list the ctiteria that must be met in order for that member to accept a solution. To take a simple example, if a group were to buy a car, one member mighr be interested in a car rhat can hold all six group members so that they can work together as they travel. Another
might be interested in a car that uses fuel efficiently, while a third member might be interested in a car rhat requires little maintenance. Notice that none of these interests specifies a particular make and model of car (position). If a member states a position, such as "I want to buy a Toyota Sienna," identify it as a position and then ask, "What is it about the Toyota Sienna that leads you to suggest that as a solution?"
Ground Rule Six: Combine Advocacy and Inquiry
Combining advocacy and inquiry means expressing your poinr of view, including sharing your reasoning and inrenr, and then inviting others to inquire into your comments or share their own. For example, a group member might say, "I think it would help to give division heads their own budgets, so that their accountability will be commensurare with their responsibiliry. Here's rhe reasoning rhat led me to suggest this. [The person then explains the reasoning that led him to reach his conclusion.] I'd like to heat what each of you think about this idea. What are your thoughts? What, if anything, do you see differently?" Combining advocacy and inquiry also means asking others about their reasoning when they advocate a point of view.
Combining advocacy and inquiry accomplishes a couple of goals. Firsr, ir shifts a meeting from a series of unconnecred monologues to a focused conversation by explicitly inviting others to inquire and comment on yout rematks. Second, combining advocacy and inquiry creates conditions for learning. When you share your reasoning and then ask others to inquire into it, others can determine for themselves whether they agree with your reasoning or see parts of it differently. They are also more likely ro reciprocate by sharing theit teasoning and inviting you to share your views about it.
As this ground rule implies, combining advocacy and inquiry requires that you both advocate and inquite. If you only advocate, you may not learn what others think. Other people will likely respond by advocating theit point of view, which leads you to respond with more advocacy. This creates a reinforcing cycle of increasing advocacy in which each party tties harder to convince the others, ultimately resulting in either a stalemate or a winner and loser—a loser who has little commitment to the decision. However, if you only inquire, you do nor help others understand your reasoning and why you are asking your questions. People feel "ser up" and become suspicious, or they try ro give you the answer they think
Ground Rules for Effective Groups 5
you want to hear. Advocacy and inquiry alone are each a way of controlling the conversation and can easily lead to defensive behavior in others.
Not all inquiry is genuine. In genuine inquiry, you ask a question with the intent of learning. In rhetorical inquiry, you ask a question with the intent of implicitly conveying your point of view. For example, the question "Why don't you just try it my way and see how it works out?" is not genuine inquiry, because embedded in the question is the implicit advocacy, "just try it my way." In contrast, a genuine inquiry would be "what kinds of problems do you think might occur if you were to try it the way I'm suggesting?" Notice that in the genuine inquiry, there is no attempt to embed your own point of view in the inquiry.
Suppose you are talking with a team and you are concerned that the team's plans are not responsive to changing customer demands. Rather than ease into the conversation by saying, "How do you think your new plan has worked in terms of responding to customer needs?" you could start by combining advocacy and inquiry: "I'd like to talk with you about your work plan. I have some concerns that your new plan doesn't address the changing needs of our clients. Let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean and get your reactions. [You would then use the ground rule use specific examples' and illustrate your point.] What arc your thoughts? What, if anything, do you see differently or do you think I've missed?"
Ground Rule Seven: Jointly Design Next Steps and Ways to Test Disagreements
Jointly designing next steps and ways to test disagreements means deciding with others what topics to discuss, when and how to discuss them, and when to switch topics, rather than making these decisions privately and unilaterally.
If you use this ground rule to jointly design next steps, you might still draft an agenda, but you would explain to others what led you to include the items on the agenda and exclude others. Then you would ask, "What changes, if any, do you think we need to make to the agenda?"
Group members often unilaterally control next steps when trying to keep the group discussion focused. For example, consider a group talking about ways to increase sales to current customers. When Yvonne says, "I think we have a problem with our billing cycles," Arthur
responds, "That's a different topic for another day." Arthur one-sidedly controls the focus of the conversation on the basis of his untested assumption that Yvonne's comment is unrelated to the current topic. If Yvonne thinks her comment is on topic, she may stop participating in the meeting and the group would not get the benefit of using her information in deciding a course of action. In addition, Yvonne may be less committed to the course of action that the group decides on. Had Arthur used the ground rule, he could have said, "Yvonne, I don't see how your point about the problem with billing cycles is related to increasing sales to current customers. Am I missing something? Can you help me understand how you see them related?" When Yvonne responds, Arthur and other group members might learn about a connection between the two topics that they had not previously seen. For example, the organization's billing cycles may create a time lag, so that salespeople do not have real-time data about their customers' inventory. If there is a connection, the group can decide whether it makes more sense to pursue Yvonne's idea now or later. If it turns out that Yvonne's comment is not related, Arthur can ask her to place it on a future agenda.
Jointly designing ways to test disagreements addresses one specific type of next step. When group members find themselves in a disagreement, each member often tries to convince the others that his or her own position is correct, engaging in an escalating cycle of advocacy. Each offers evidence to support his or her position, and the others do the same for their positions. Each may doubt the others' data, and none are likely to offer data that might weaken their own positions. In the end, the "losers" are still likely to believe that they are right.
Consider a conversation in which team members disagree about whether proposed changes to their product will lead to increased production costs. If the team members jointly designed a way to test their disagreement, together they would develop a way to figure out whether the proposed changes would lead to increased cost and if so, how much. Designing the joint test includes agreeing on what data to collect and what processes to use in collecting it. Group members decide together who to speak with, what questions to ask, what sources to use, and what statistical data to consider relevant. Whatever method you use, it is critical that the team members involved agree to it and agree to use the information thai comes from it. Two important questions to ask when jointly testing disagreements are "How could it be that we are both correct?" and "How could
6 Ground Rules for Effective Groups
we each be seeing different parts of the same problem?" Often, members have different sets of facts because they are talking about different times, places, or people. By jointly resolving disagreements, members generate information that can be validated, and they are more likely to be committed to the outcome, because they helped design the test and agreed to abide by its results.
Ground Rule Eight: Discuss Undiscussable Issues
Undiscussable issues are ones that are relevant to the group's task but that group members believe they can't discuss openly in the group without some negative consequences. Examples include members who are not performing adequately and their effect on the group, members who do not trust one another, and members who are reluctant to disagree with their manager. Group members often choose not to discuss undiscussable issues (or they discuss them outside of meetings) because they reason that raising these issues will make some group members feci embarrassed or defensive. They seek to save face for the group members and for themselves as well. In short, they see discussing undiscussable issues as not being very compassionate. Yet group members often overlook the negative systemic—and uncompassionate—-consequences that they create by not raising undiscussable issues. Consider three team members—Juan, Carlos, and Stan—who are concerned about the poor performance of two other team members—Lynn and Jim—and how Lynn and Jim's performance affects the ability of the rest of the team to excel. If Juan, Carlos, and Stan don't raise this issue directly with Lynn and Jim, they will likely continue to talk about Lynn and Jim behind their backs. Lynn and Jim won't know what the others' concerns are, and so will not be able to make a free and informed choice about whether to change their behavior. Because they are not changing their behavior, Juan, Carlos, and Stan will continue to privately complain about them while simultaneously withholding the very information that could change the situation. Further, Juan, Carlos, and Stan will probably be blind to the way they are contributing to the problem by not sharing what Jim and Lynn do that they believe is ineffective. Over time, the team's overall performance, its processes, and its members' ability to meet their needs for growth and development are likely to suffer. This does not strike me as particularly compassionate. Although this ground rule is emotionally more difficult to use, the process for using
it is contained in all the previous ground rules. When discussing undiscussable issues, it is important to test assumptions and inferences, share all relevanr information, use specific examples and agree on what important words mean, share your reasoning and intent, focus on interests rather than positions, combine advocacy and inquiry, and jointly design next steps and ways to test disagreements.
Your feelings about raising the undiscussable issue arc relevant information. For example, you may say, "I want to raise what I think has been an undiscussable issue in the group. I'm raising it not because I'm trying to put anyone on the spot, but because I think we can be a much more effective team ifwc address this issue. I'm worried about talking about the issue because I'm concerned that I may get defensive or that others may get defensive. If you see me getting defensive, please tell me."
Ground Rule Nine: Use a Decision-Making Rule That Generates the Level of Commitment Needed
This ground rule makes specific the core value of internal commitment. It increases the likelihood that group members will support the decision that is made and will implement it.
This ground rule is based on the premise thai group members will be more committed to a decision to the extent that they make an informed free choice to support that decision. The more the group members are able to make an informed free choice, the more they are likely to be internally committed to the decision. Groups use different decision-making processes. In consultative decision making, the leader or a subgroup makes the decision for the group after discussing Ideas about the issue and possible solutions with the group. In democratic decision making, the full group discusses the issue and is involved in making the decision. A decision is made when some percentage of the group (often a majority or more) agrees to a decision. In consensus decision making, everyone in the group is involved in making the decision. A decision is reached when all group members can support a decision and agree to implement it. In this definition of consensus, if one person does not supporr the decision, the group does not yet have consensus. In delegative decision making, the leader gives the decision to the group or to a subgroup to make. The leader may specify conditions within which the decision must be made, such as limits on cost or
Ground Rules for Effective Groups 7
time. In delegative decision making, the leader may or may not specify what decision-making rule to use. These decision-making processes generate different responses. Group member commitment is necessary when implementation of a decision requires the support and cooperation of the group members. When commitment is needed and when there are different perspectives among group members or the group members and the leader have different views, the decision-making process needs to help group members (including the leader) explore their different perspectives and create a shared understanding. Consensus decision making accomplishes this by ensuring that a decision is not reached until each group member can commit to the decision as his or her own. It equalizes the distribution of power in the group, because every member's concerns must be addressed and every member's consent is required to reach a decision. It can take more time to make a decision by consensus than by another process, but because people are internally committed to the decisions, consensus decisions usually take less time to implement effectively. The ground rule does not state that all—or most— decisions should be made by consensus. It recognizes that some decisions do not require the internal commitment generated through consensus and that in some situations, group members can be committed without consensus decision making. In these situations, decisionmaking processes other than consensus are appropriate. However, when there are different perspectives on an issue, you risk losing the commitment of some members if you don't have their consent.
Putting the Ground Rules to Use
You can use these ground rules even if other group members do not. Still, the ground rules are most powerful when everyone understands them, agrees on their meanings, and commits to using them. When you introduce the ground rules to a group, it is important that you do it in a manner consistent with the core values and the ground rules themselves. This means explaining how you believe the ground rules can help the group, giving specific examples of times when you and others might have used a ground rule to improve the group. It also means inviting others to share their views, including questions and concerns they have about using the ground rules. Above all, group members need to make a free and informed choice to use the ground rules. The ground rules are not the group's ground rules until all members have agreed to use them.
People often ask me whether they can use a subset of the ground rules. Each of the nine ground rules helps the group in a different way, and together they support each other; removing one ground rule reduces your ability to use the power of the set. Still, it is more effective to use some ground rules than none.
Try not to use your past experience with a group to decide whether the ground rules can work in that group. Because behavior is interactive and systemic, if you have acted in ways that are inconsistent with the ground rules, you may have contributed to others reacting ineffectively and attributed their ineffective behaviors solely to them, without recognizing that you contributed to those behaviors. If this has happened, your data about the group is flawed. For example, if you think that group members respond defensively, you may unwittingly be acting in ways that contribute to their defensiveness—for example, by making assumptions about them without testing them or by advocating without inquiring.
Your group will more quickly increase its skill and effectiveness if it consistently uses these ground rules. To remind members of the ground rules, it helps to place a poster of the ground rules in the group meeting space and provide each member with a pocket-sized ground rules card (both of these are available from Roger Schwarz & Associates).
Using the ground rules yields many benefits. Used together, the ground rules will be powerful in helping your group increase the quality of their decisions and commitment to implementing the decisions, decrease implementation time, improve working relationships, and improve group member satisfaction.
1 The first three core values are from Chris Argyris and Don Schon's book Theory in Practice (1974).
2 In general, the ground rules are based on the work of Chris Argyris and Don Schon.
3This ground rule is from Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton's book Getting to Yes (1991).
© 2002 Roger Schwarz & Associates, Inc.
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8 Ground Ruins for Kffective Groups
Additional information about using the Ground Rules for Effective Groups can be found in:
FACILITATOR
The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches, New and Revised Edition (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 2002).
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FACILITATOR
The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook: Tips, Tools, and Tested Methods for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 2005)
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