Facilitator as Mediator: Mediating the Tension between Management and Employee-Learners.

The political context of curriculum and program development was acknowledged at least as early as 1949 by R.W. Taylor, who, in his seminal work on curriculum, briefly acknowledged the political nature of curriculum design. Contemporary scholars have been much more direct in acknowledging power differentials and politics in the planning process (Houle, 1976; Shaw, 1975; Walker & Soltis, 2009). Perhaps none has provided such a blunt and useful guide to navigating the often difficult political environment of program planning as Cervero and Wilson (1994, 2005). These authors go a long way toward illuminating the political realities encountered by program developers and facilitators in workplace environments, going so far as to point out that a "planner's actions are structured by the power relationships of their institutional and social contexts" (1994, p. 29), and that "planners need to act according to a political analysis of their organizational context" (p. 115). The increased acknowledgement of the inherently political nature of program planning gave rise to the suggestion that negotiation is a requisite skill for the program planner. Shaw (1975) suggested that negotiation was a tool which could be used in "tension management" (p. 83). Walker (2003), Forester (1989), and Isaac (1987) speak of negotiation as an essential part of effective practice, and Cervero and Wilson (1994, 2005) have made it a centerpiece in their work. In the examination of planning as a process in which multiple parties with many disparate interests are present, the planner must work to negotiate those interests so that successful and effective programs are produced and provided. This paper builds on this concept of negotiation and provides a more narrowly focused framework for negotiating content-related political dynamics within workplace training settings. While remaining consistent with this scholarship, the Facilitator as Mediator (FAM) model is distinct in at least three ways. First, it focuses on a highly specific aspect of the program planning and facilitation process, that of negotiating course/class content with those that possess more power in the workplace--both the planner's supervisors and the planner's classroom learners. Second, FAM specifically addresses learner resistance and the role it has in exerting power in the planning and facilitation process. Rothwell and Kazanas (1992) discuss strategies for building rapport in the classroom, and include Kirkpatrick's (1985) central reasons for resistance to change, but negotiating the power of learning resistance in the classroom is not a primary focus. The third distinction of FAM is its recognition and dependence on in-class, real-time, negotiation with employee learners through the teaching process. The model, like most practice-based models, was born out of a highly contextualized setting, and the assumptions of that setting are enumerated below. Setting the Context My purpose here is to introduce a model for use in program planning which has as its foci the formulation, administrative approval, and delivery of learning content. While the FAM approach can be utilized across many different domains, it is important that the reader be aware of the context from which it was derived and the assumptions upon which it is based. Assumptions The following assumptions are all related to the standard ways in which the determination of course content is brought about in workplace training environments. The first is that the program developer is usually a separate individual from the upper-level manager(s) from whom ultimate approval will be required (Laird, 2003; Shaw, 1975). That is to say that those who are usually paid to be the resident "experts" at program development do not usually have the ultimate say, not only about how the course is delivered but about precisely what is delivered. It is the 'what' that will be addressed here. …