Communication or conflict : conferences their nature, dynamics, and planning

Many of our most significant and productive relationships with other individuals, and berween the groups to which we belong and other groups, are established and developed in meetings. Many of our most important social functions are carried out in meetings Indeed, we may see the great number of local, national, and inter national meetings, now far more numerous than ever before in history, not only as evidence of, but also as a major mechanism which has evolved to deal with, our new and far greater degree of interdependence.

Meetings have begun to replace battlefields as the arenas in which relationships between groups of people are determined. They in creasingly represent our frontiers, where growth in understanding of ourselves and of each other, and our consequent ability to cooperate more effectively, can be expected to take place.

More and more we depend on meetings for giving and acquiring information, for developing understanding, for the definition of differences, and for reaching compromises, decisions, and agreements The circumstances and conditions of meetings greatly affect any of these processes and may either facilitate or inhibit them; hence their great and increasing importance.

Better understanding of the functioning of any instrument, physical or social, can lead to its more effective use. This book is the record of attempt to advance our knowledge and understanding of meetings, those powerful instruments whose misuse could destroy us all, but whour most effective use could help to speed our progress toward a better future.