Cool Tools for Hot Topics: Group Tools to Facilitate Meetings When Things Are Hot

by Ron Kraybill, Evelyn Wright

Some subjects seem too hot for a group to discuss sanely. Let Ron Kraybill, professor of Conflict Studies, show you how to help people hear each other when they feel like shouting.

Here is how to focus on the issues at stake rather than having a war of personalities; how to employ actual practices for better understanding (interviews, small-group discussions, role-reversal presentations); and how to move a group toward making a decision that all can honestly support.

Lead author Ron Kraybill is a professor of Conflict Studies in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. During the years of the South African political transition, he trained local, regional, and national leadership in negotiation and mediation skills and served as a training advisor to the National Peace Accord.

Cool Tools is rich in anecdotes and practical how-to for any group faced with tension-filled decision-making.

A book in the Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series.

Genres: Nonfiction

90 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2006

Reviews

[Kari]

Read for class

[Susan]

I enjoyed what I read of this book. I wanted to read the whole thing, but only needed a chapter or two for what I was working on. I intend to return to this book at a later time

[John]

I'll use this book as a reference for the many useful ideas for meetings I facilitate.

[Scott Hughes]

Lots of great methods for having difficult conversations. Some of them are really great for relieving the stress of facilitating such conversations.