Recently there was a post on 'how to deal with a moan fest' via my IAF discussion group. There were some interesting posts and after having read a few of them and adding my own experience I'd like to share with you some possible process suggestions:
1. Properly acknowledge the complaints right from the start.
2. Be aware thought that sometimes people don’t know when to stop venting. So after listening to someone for a few minutes, letting them know they have been heard by paraphrasing back what you heard, asking clarifying questions and/or scribing down their concerns, you may sense that the individual/ group may naturally shift to speaking about a solution. However, sometimes this doesn’t happen so it may be helpful to:
a. invite the person to shift to a "solution", by asking them what it is, that they DO want, or …
b. use Appreciative Inquiry to get to the solutions, for example:
i. Q: Imagine you fell asleep tonight and all of the challenges disappeared by magic, what would be the first tiny signs that that the miracle had happened?
ii. Q: If you had a magic wand, how would you want it to be. When/where does this happen already... or, even just a little bit?
iii. Q: On a scale of 1 - 10, where do you stand right now with 10 being the perfect situation. (And when the group responds 3 because they are feeling so low, follow up with). What gets you even that high? What's already working for you? What would get you one point higher?
iv. Q: Was there a time when you were able to bring about massive change despite the odds? What was going on? What did it take to get the change to happen?
3. If people need more safety in order to be candid, break them up in to pairs. Have the pairs then report out during a large group plenary.
