Standing in the Fire: Leading High-Heat Meetings with Calm, Clarity, and Courage

Many experienced facilitators, OD consultants, coaches, and organizational leaders increasingly find themselves “standing in the fire” - working in situations where group and community members are polarized, angry, fearful and confused. Facilitator Larry Dressler has come to believe that simply picking up yet another method or technique won’t help in situations like these. What has a truly transformational impact is what he calls the facilitator’s presence. Cultivating an ability to access a compassionate presence that people experience as open, authentic and clear in intention during the most difficult situations moves facilitators from being competent professionals to being on a path toward self-mastery. Standing in the Fire offers a set of self-directed principles and practices that enable facilitators to work on themselves to keep their emotional balance no matter how overheated things threaten to become. It brings together profound teachings from diverse fields, including western psychology, eastern spiritual practices, the arts, social sciences and medical research. Dressler’s grounded, empathetic approach helps readers reawaken and discover an untapped capacity that comes from within and is expressed as a powerful presence standing in service to a group.