Managing External Relations - Disaster Management Center ...

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2 Chapter Promoting Positive Relationships By studying this chapter you will learn about: ■ Facilitation skills—understanding group processes and feedback ■ Negotiation skills—problem solving and conflict resolution As discussed in Chapter 1, there are many well-founded arguments for better co-ordination and collaboration, including elimination of gaps and duplication in services and increased donor demands for accountability. Despite these arguments, developing productive inter-agency relationships is still a challenge. From your experience, what are some of the barriers to effective inter-agency relationships? Some of the barriers you mention may include: ♦ Lack of trusting relationships with other agencies and agency staff ♦ Inconsistency or unpredictability in agency or staff behaviours ♦ Hesitancy to be transparent or open and honest ♦ Feelings of competition ♦ Desire for autonomy ♦ Lack of understanding of another’s needs and concerns ♦ Lack of time, or unwillingness to put in the needed time and effort to work through problems ♦ Weaknesses in communications skills such as presentation, facilitation and negotiation skills ♦ Lack of knowledge about or failure to use available co-ordination and communication mechanisms ♦ Problems in inter-agency co-ordination such as: too many actors in the process, disagreement on assistance needs, differing expectations, inefficient bureaucracies, frequent staff turnover, etc. 19
EP 04 20 Managing External Relations Although the barriers may seem numerous, you can break through them by developing your knowledge and skills. The rest of this module contains information to help you strengthen your facilitation, problem solving, presentation, and media skills. In addition, we suggest a methodology to help you create strategies to succeed in the three main categories of external relations. Cultivating external relations takes both time and effort, before and during an emergency. Expending this time and effort, however, will help ensure that refugee needs are addressed in the most effective ways possible. Facilitation Skills Understanding the principles of facilitation contributes to your networking skills and general effectiveness in internal and external relations, and is closely associated with your ability to solve problems and resolve conflicts in any setting, including emergencies. Facilitation skills are useful in handling group feedback during presentations, and can enhance effectiveness at meetings, such as inter-agency meetings, whether you are the facilitator or a participant, and whether there is a large group or only a few people. Facilitation is a process for helping groups perform more effectively by soliciting the leadership skills and potential of all members. Certain basic values must underlie a facilitator’s approach and provide the ground rules for the group. These are: Democracy/egalitarianism — Each person has the opportunity to participate equally in the group discussion as well as the planning of the meeting and the agenda. Each person has something to contribute and should be given the opportunity to do so, if he/she chooses. Responsibility — Each person is responsible for his or her own participation in the meeting but the facilitator needs to be sensitive to how much responsibility the participants are able to take. Co-operation — The facilitator and participants work together toward collective goals. Honesty — The facilitator sets the tone for an honest exchange through an attitude of openness and information sharing. In group meetings such as contingency planning ‘roundtables’ or emergency co-ordination meetings, the facilitator’s focus is on getting people to work together to accomplish their goals as quickly as possible. Ground rules should be made clear to everyone from the start and should help equalise responsibility for the success or failure of the group. Facilitation techniques should not be used to exert control over a group—it should be made clear that the facilitator’s word is not law. The exact role of the facilitator depends on the purpose of the group and what is expected of the facilitator. One does not need to be labelled ‘facilitator’ in order to employ facilitation techniques. In more experienced groups, any member can call the group back to the subject of the discussion, interrupt patterns of conflict or misunderstandings, offer clarifying comments, summarise activities or give evaluative feedback. In groups less experienced with a facilitated approach, members may expect the facilitator to perform all of these functions. If you have been asked to give a briefing or an interview, you can affect the dynamics of the discussion by the way you present your information, the atmosphere you create, and your attitudes and body language (see presentation skills in Chapter 4).
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