Facilitating whole-system methods across cultures: A case study of a Future Search conference on the future United Nations in Pakistan

This case study examines a whole-system method used in a development setting: a November 1998 Future Search conference for the UN system in Pakistan, with a multicultural mix of over 60 participants from different UN, government, donor and civil society organizations. The researcher helped plan and co-facilitate the three-day event, and afterwards interviewed half of those involved in order to explore issues surrounding the wider use of these methods in similar settings: How these methods can come to be used in normally resistant environments; (1) How these methods can come to be used in normally resistance environments; (2) How exposure to them can create receptivity for their wider use; (3) How different cultures experience these methods as an indicator of their acceptability in non-western, multicultural and grassroots settings; and (4) How practitioners of these methods can use intercultural communication concepts when working in such settings.; Based on a review of relevant works on whole-system methods, participatory development and intercultural communication, the researcher developed a tentative framework to predict how people at different extremes of key culture-general dimensions might experience whole-system events. Some overarching themes emerged from the qualitative analysis of the coded interviews: Receptivity; Challenges and Difficulties; Momentum for Action; Questions of Culture; Changing UN Culture; Windows of Opportunity; Modifying the Method; and Partnering for Cross-cultural Facilitation. Illustrative quotes and reference to the tentative framework support the presentation of observations under each theme. Practitioners may find the summary of lessons learned useful in their cross-cultural work---in particular the "three-legged stool" model of cross-cultural facilitation. An external process expert teams up with both an internal and a local facilitator who respectively understand the cultural sensitivities of the organization and of the main national groups represented. The researcher closes by describing how the climate for whole-system methods has recently improved in the UN development arena.