In support of John Warfield's description of meeting processes, I have
found that visual display, manually prepared as a meeting progresses, of
the general type that he proposes will reduce almost of dysfunctional
group behaviour with a (very) little skillful facilitation
(manipulation?).
The key point that I've seen is that if the question under consideration
is visually displayed and responses to it are visually displayed so that
what is said by each person is part of the record - that is, we are not
dealing with summaries or blending or agreement - and that these later
become integrated _or not_ , then the pathologies of groups largely
disappears.
If the record cannot be integrated in any useful way, then the same
question, now updated with prior comments will be considered again until
integration does occur or the question changes. This might be thought of
as a western version of a Native American council process. Or it might be
thought of as a basic hermeneutic/postmodern process.
What defeats the process is that an unskilled facilitator (ineffective
manipulator?) will attempt to drive the process to a conclusion too early
- or in a forced direction.
While I've never heard of a computer generated process to do this at a
face-to-face meeting, I'm intrigued by the prospect. The condition in all
cases for effectiveness - that is, a process without force - is that the
participants agree to the process, understand the process and become able
participants in the process. These three tend to go together.
--
Mike McMaster <Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk>
"Intelligence is an underlying organisational principle
of the universe. The 'logos principle' is hidden and
perceptible only to the intelligence." Heraclitus