Intervention involves a discussion that is aimed to address a problem or to improve a given condition. In many cases, intervention involves a group of people who come together to address a given issue. Interventions are mainly led by a facilitator whose main role is to guide the discussion towards achieving the desired outcome. Therefore, the success of intervention mainly relies on the facilitator, especially concerning how he or she engages members of discussion, manages the emotions, and overcome the emerging challenges. It is important for the facilitator to have knowledge and skills on how to guide a group discussion.
The intervention in this essay is about a situation when a manager in the organization I used to work for was tasked with the responsibility of addressing the problem of employee behaviors, which was becoming rampant in the workplace. A significant number of employees were violating the ethical principle of professionalism, which affected their behaviors towards colleagues and customers. The manager organized a discussion with all the employees to address the problem of unprofessionalism. Facilitation is one of the most challenging tasks, especially when a facilitator is working with diverse people while addressing and emotive issues.
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The intervention helped in addressing the problem of unprofessionalism, which was affecting the performance and productivity of employees, including reducing the quality of customer services. All employees were given the opportunity to raise their concerns, point out the cause of the problem, and propose the most suitable solution to the problem. As a result, some employees actively participated in the discussion and contributed towards the solutions. According to the concerns and issues that were raised by the employees, it emerged that the problem of unprofessionalism in the organization was caused by lack of a clear code of conduct that was understood by all workers. Although the organization had a code of conduct document, many employees did not know about it. Therefore, it was conducted that the code of conduct booklets would be distributed to all employees who were expected to read, understand, and comply with the requirements. The discussion was largely successful despite some disagreements and conflicts that emerged.
The success of the discussion was mainly attributed to how the facilitator handled the intervention. First, the facilitator remained neural throughout the intervention, and he only contributed to the discussion when necessary. He actively listened to what the employees were saying without acting as an expert in the area of professionalism. At the same time, the facilitator created encouraged discussion during the intervention by creating a favorable, safe, and trusting environment. Besides, he motivated employees to openly and freely express their concerns and ideas without fear of intimidation and victimization. To handle the group emotion, he acknowledged the feelings of every employee and encouraged them to express their feelings openly. Besides, the facilitator guided employees on how to effectively respond to emotional expressions. Employees were allowed to express their emotions. Time was the major challenge during the intervention, and the facilitator handled it by prioritizing key points and encouraging employees to be precise and specific. The facilitators also handled conflict challenges by not taking sides.
The facilitators effectively managed the intervention by handling emotions and conflict that emerged during the discussion. Managing group emotions is not an easy task, and it can lead to the failure of the discussion ( Fink & Yolles, 2015) . According to the power and status theory, people are likely to feel satisfied, confident and secure when they have the power to do something ( Turner & Stets, 2006) . On the contrary, people are likely to develop anxiety and fear when they lose power. Therefore, the facilitator effectively handles the group emotions by giving employees powers to freely participate in the discussion without any fear, making them be satisfied and secured. Employees felt they had power when they were given freedom to say anything that concerned them. Hence, the facilitator applied the principles of the theory to guide the discussion.
Apart from the theory, the concept of active listening also emerged in the intervention. Listening is essential in facilitation because it enables the facilitators to understand and comprehend what members are discussing ( Lakshmi, 2017) . Active listening gave the facilitator an opportunity to understand the issues that were raised by employees and to develop an appropriate solution to the problem. It could have been difficult for the facilitator to guide employees to the right decision if he was not listening to the many issues that were raised during the discussion.
Therefore, I believe that I can apply the power and status theory to address emotive issues in the organization. For examples, to reduce the emotions during an emotional discussion, I will ensure that people are empowered to raise issues that may contradict the viewpoints or stand made by the top management. Besides, I can apply the concept of active listening to address some of the disputes in the workplace. For instance, while solving conflicts between employees, I will actively listen to both sides of the stories to understand the truth and the core issue causing the conflict. Consequently, with active listening, I will be able to solve any conflict in the workplace.
In conclusion, facilitation is one of the strategies that can be used to address problems in organizations. However, the facilitator should have the required knowledge and skills that are required to facilitate effectively. Importantly, the facilitator should be ready to deal with emerging emotion and challenges during the discussion. Facilitators should be active listeners, and they must be ready to empower members of the discussion to express themselves without any fear freely.
References
Fink, G., & Yolles, M. (2015). Collective emotion regulation in an organization–a plural agency with cognition and affect. Journal of Organizational Change Management , 28 (5), 832- 871.
Lakshmi, R. (2017). Effective Listening Enhances the Process of Communication. IUP Journal of English Studies , 12 (1), 7.
Turner, J. H., & Stets, J. E. (2006). Sociological theories of human emotions. Annual Review. Sociology , 32(1) , 25-52.
