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I never realised that the US is a very efficient market until I met a former Marketing Manager from Unilever who had been promoted to Asia. He explained that with one single marketing campaign he could reach a huge market of wealthy customers. With 300 million inhabitants sharing the same language and culture a single approach would do the job. In contrast the different countries in South East Asia all required different marketing plans.

This discussion came to my mind when I was preparing a South East Asia meeting for a UN agency. My task was to facilitate the making of national action plans based on a common regional framework.

Multilevel shortcomings of the TOP® ‘action planning method’

To design the meeting I used the Technology of Participation® (TOP). TOP was designed in the 60s and 70s of last century to facilitate community development and corporate strategic planning. It consists of several methods of which the so-called ‘action planning method’ is one. I especially like the fact that TOP action plans are made doable, personal and time-bound.

However, things get complicated when regional and national perspectives interact with one and other. Suddenly there is more than one level at play. Most facilitation methods, including the TOP ‘action planning method’, don’t have an answer on how to deal with these multi-tier situations.

Integrating different cycles of action planning

I believe these methodological shortcomings originate from the fundamental paradigm that the group should articulate the answer. This bottom-up approach is the nature of any participative technology. Involving a higher level would be easy if you could just treat that level as a given. That level would then set the boundaries of your bottom-up approach (though acceptance of the boundaries by the group would then need attention). But when the group is also asked to define that level, then you have to integrate different cycles of action planning in a smart way.

At hindsight, the design of my meeting should have looked as follows.

  • V stands for Victory and reflects the vision of the group,
  • C for the group’s Commitment to the vision based on the current reality and
  • A stands for the Action plan in doable, personal and time-bound terms.



Basically participative methodologies are too much based on a ‘US model’. It’s time to add some South East Asian diversity in it.

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