Normally when I talk about a book on this blog, I actually read the book first, but I want to make an exception in this case. A friend of mine from my international conflict resolution days recently had a book published by Jossey-Bass. Her name is Suzanne Ghais, and she is Director at CDR Associates, a conflict resolution organization in Boulder, Colorado. She was in town today doing a presentation at George Mason University (where she and I both got Master’s degrees), so I now have my signed copy of the book.
The book is called Extreme Facilitation: Guiding Groups Through Controversy and Complexity. Again, I haven’t read it (but I will!), but from my conversations with Suzanne it looks to be a great synthesis of both the conflict resolution/mediation field and the field of organization development and facilitation (the two fields I blend in my work).
I know Suzanne’s intelligence, wit, depth of experience, and passion for this work, so I know the book will be good. It is clearly written for people who do a lot of facilitation in their work, so I admit it’s not for everyone, but facilitation is certainly becoming part of a good leader’s repertoire, so if you can fit it onto your reading list, I recommend it.
And I promise to shine the light on some the book’s better points when I read it.