SOLUTION:

In a late morning and early afternoon meeting at the USC Alumni's Athenaeum, Rick asked for direction and creative input on how to build a 'Pasadena Community Congress' for policy development and direct citizen problem-solving. I facilitated a session in which the group wrote the answers to a question Rick and I created, and I had them finalize a document which included all of their input. This document became the foundation of each successive step in the process.

Grant House, the President of a Merchant's Association, discovered that his members faced a $500,000 assessment from a utility that was undertaking a major project in their district.

I helped Grant organize with other local organizations to get the utility to hold a meeting with those affected by the project. I trained him in this method and assisted him to prepare a set of highly focused questions that he could ask in sequence, but only as a participant in the utility's meeting. Within two weeks after the meeting, the utility had agreed to cover all the additional costs.

Dr. Michael Cooper, the incoming President the Downtown Association, had a very ambitious agenda for his opening speech, which would have taken at least 30 minutes to cover, with only a 10 minute slot to deliver it.

We used the method to sequence all his thoughts and turn as many as possible into questions of the group. With several rounds of consultations, he created a highly interactive talk that accomplished all his objectives.

A strong woman leader in Santa Barbara wanted to diffuse the environmentalist vs. business polarity that was gridlocking virtually all the decision-making in the city in 1990.

I developed a strategy for getting leaders from every aspect of the debate to participate in building a vision for the city in the year 2010. The emerging core group, which took about six months to develop, convinced the publisher of

the local newspaper to host the process. The resulting document and network set in place the new consensus that jobs were essential for a healthy environment and a great environment was an essential business asset.