The biggest trap that most discussion groups fall into is a propensity for competitive debate rather than productive dialogue. For many people “discussion,” especially about charged political issues, means a struggle to prove that everyone who holds a different point of view is wrong and should be convinced to change his/her mind. The idea of winning or losing an argument or debate is too often the point of the discussion. The value of hearing other points of view and possibly changing one’s mind is too rarely a consideration. In fact, flexibility or availability to change directions is often thought of as weak or even unreliable.

Solution: Arguments about different points of view or other disagreements that come up will be handled in a number of ways. For example, participants will be repeatedly encouraged to listen attentively and whenever necessary repeat what they think they’ve heard. The facilitator might ask those who disagree to state and try to defend their “opponent’s” point of view, in order to hear and understand the value s/he sees in that position. The individuals involved will be asked frequently to check how accurately they perceive the points of view of others.

The facilitator will remind participants very frequently that the primary purpose of the dialogue is to help each individual in the interaction to get the feedback they need to improve their own and each other’s proposals, both in form and content, and to understand, clarify, and enrich each other’s ideas and possibly change or improve one’s own thinking.

Participants, as well as facilitators, will be asked to commit themselves to preventing, stopping, or negotiating conflicts, and trying to resolve whatever confusions or difficulties come up. It will be the specific responsibility of facilitators to recap what’s been said as briefly, clearly, and as often as necessary. If they are unable to do this, they will call on members of the group to help, and/or ask the original speaker to try to clarify his/her meaning. However they do it, attempts will be made to clear up misunderstandings. The goal of the group is to develop the best possible solutions. Therefore, facilitators will pause the group process whenever necessary to get the discussion back on track as quickly as possible and keep it product oriented.

The value of exposure to different and opposing views of the problem they’ve selected will be stressed, together with awareness that not every disagreement can be resolved, or necessarily should be. Maintaining differences of opinion and developing each of them in separate channels is important. A good deal of focus will be placed on respecting differences that aren’t resolved with a minimum of divisive debate.