The Way of “Yes, and…” is a way to discover your collaborative potential
If there is a better way than a genuine “Yes, and…” to bridge personal differences, I’m open to it! ‘Yes’ combined with a sincere ‘And’ (YES/AND), instead of ‘but’, opens up a world of potential. This was hit home again to me last week during a workshop session on games and exercises to stimulate creativity [...]
Making it easy to build consensus and move forward together
How can I make it easier for people and organizations to build consensus and move forward together? That’s the question I try keep in front of me, as I go about the day-to-day of my business. And, here’s a simple mental model I created to help guide me in how I answer that question:
This model [...]
Resolving conflict online vs. offline – similarities and differences
When we collaborate to address and resolve complex issues, those issues can take on a different dynamic when the conversation is online. The capacity to successfully address conflict and build consensus, in both the online and off-line worlds, has value for any organization.
I’m currently working with a group of mediators; exploring ways to resolve [...]
Building a collaborative project framework
Building a collaborative project framework involves thinking about the connections between how we talk, what we talk about, and what happens afterwards. What kind of infrastructure supports making those connections?
Two things I think are essential to structuring collaborative projects are:
People need the places and opportunities to have the important conversations
Those conversations need to be effectively [...]
An apology can make it safe to collaborate
The recent newswire story proclaimed “Sorry no longer the hardest word in Ontario”. Ontario passed legislation this month that will allow people to say sorry without fear of having it turned against them in court. Under the new rules, apologies can’t be used as an admission of fault or liability and won’t affect someone’s [...]
Question Bank: A place to invest your organization’s important questions
It’s been said “there is more learning in the question itself than the answer”. If your organization emphasizes learning; then good questions represent an investment in learning. To better manage that investment, why not maintain a question bank.
Last week I participated in a meeting with some mediator colleagues involved in the The Court Mediation Program [...]
Questions are the engine that drive collaborative conversations
The collaborative facilitator knows that questions make things happen. Questions are the engine that drives healthy and productive group conversation.
A few years ago, I took a workshop, on facilitation and asking questions, from Dorothy Strachan in Ottawa, Ontario. She has been a facilitator for a long time, and is an expert in asking questions [...]
So many ways to have a conversation
Collaboration is as much about having conversations as anything. And today there are so many ways to have those conversations.
In organizations, when people are in the same physical space, there are many ways to have those important face-to-face conversations that support collaborative initiative. Future Search , World Café, Open Space are all examples [...]
Ben Ziegler on 
