The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches » (3rd Edition)

Roger Schwarz is an organizational psychologist and founder and president of Roger Schwarz Associates, Inc. a consulting group that helps organizations use facilitative skills to create fundamental change. He facilitates groups and teaches, consults, coaches, and speaks on facilitation, facilitative leadership, and developing effective work groups. Schwarz is currently working on The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook, to be published by Jossey-Bass.

When it was published in 1994, Roger Schwarz's The Skilled Facilitator earned widespread critical acclaim and became a landmark in the field. The book is a classic work for consultants, facilitators, managers, leaders, trainers, and coaches—anyone whose role is to guide groups toward realizing their creative and problem-solving potential.
This thoroughly revised edition provides the essential materials for facilitators and includes simple but effective ground rules for group interaction. Filled with illustrative examples, the book contains proven techniques for starting meetings on the right foot and ending them positively and decisively. This important resource also offers practical methods for handling emotions when they arise in a group and offers a diagnostic approach for identifying and solving problems that can undermine the group process.
Based on Schwarz's practical experience working in the field and the feedback he has received in his dynamic workshops, this revised edition is easier to use and much more accessible. Grounded in the latest thinking on teams, organization development, and facilitation, this new edition

• Takes a more conversational approach
• Offers a clear analysis of the Skilled Facilitator approach, based on a set of core values, assumptions, and principles
• Defines the five facilitative roles—facilitator, leader, coach, consultant, and trainer
• Shows how groups can act inconsistently with ground rules and what to do to intervene
• Describes the theories that guide a facilitator's actions

The Skilled Facilitator also includes practical advice on how to work with outside consultants and how to facilitate groups within one's own organization, along with a groundbreaking section on facilitative leadership.

Booknews

Written for consultants, facilitators, managers, leaders, trainers, and coaches, this book presents techniques for running meetings, theories of facilitation, ground rules for group interaction, diagnostic approaches to problem solving, skills for intervention, and examples of how each can be applied in different settings. Appendices include sample ground rules, planning letters, guidelines for contract negotiation, agreements for facilitation, experimental exercises, questions of co-facilitators, and the like. Schwarz is an organizational psychologist and consultant. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

	Preface to the Revised Edition
	Acknowledgments
	The Author
1	The Skilled Facilitator Approach	3
2	What Makes Work Groups Effective?	17
3	The Facilitator and Other Facilitative Roles	40
4	Understanding the Theories That Guide Our Actions	65
5	Ground Rules for Effective Groups	96
6	Diagnosing Behaviors that Enhance or Hinder Group Effectiveness	136
7	Deciding Whether, How, and Why to Intervene	161
8	How to Intervene	175
9	Using the Ground Rules to Intervene	195
10	Using the Skilled Facilitator Approach with Other Processes	215
11	Beginning and Ending Meetings	233
12	Dealing with Emotions	246
13	Contracting: Deciding Whether and How to Work Together	271
14	Working with Another Facilitator	296
15	Serving as Facilitator in Your Own Organization	315
16	The Facilitative Leader	327
Resource A	Current and Previous Ground Rules	345
Resource B	Sample Planning Meeting Letter	349
Resource C	Guidelines for Developing an Effective Contract	353
Resource D	Sample Agreement for Basic Facilitation	365
Resource E	Sample Agreement for Developmental Facilitation	369
Resource F	Guidelines for Using Experiential Exercises and Self-Knowledge Instruments	373
Resource G	Questions for Cofacilitators	377
Resource H	Guidelines for Contracting with Your Manager	381
	References	385
	Index	391