They realized they were the system.

The stalemate

The leaders who make health policy happen in Colorado, the government affairs principals for the state's hospitals, insurers, clinicians, safety-net providers, and patient advocates, had spent years lobbying the governor and the legislature, often from opposite sides of the same issues. They knew each other well. That was part of the problem. Trust between some of them was low, and many wondered whether they'd be able to work together at all.

In early 2025 they started meeting informally to find out. By mid-year, they were ready to bring in outside help, and they issued a request for proposals that asked for something familiar: a consultant who would interview all of the participants and then present back to the group what they thought.

The reframe

I read the RFP and realized the last thing this group needed was to tell a consultant what they thought so he could regurgitate it back to them. What they needed was to say those things to each other.

So I proposed something different: a two-day workshop built for exactly that. And I framed it with a provocation. This group had spent years co-creating the very situation they now agreed they didn't like. The question was whether they could co-create something different.

They gave me the contract.

The design

The interviews stayed in the design, but their purpose changed. I was learning what I needed to know to be effective with this group, and making sure every participant walked into the room already feeling heard.

My interview style had an interesting side effect: one of the group's principals reportedly left his interview thinking I wasn't very confident. That's because my interviews are about the other person; my goal is to get them talking about what they think I need to understand. Two days into the workshop, that same principal understood exactly what I had been doing, and he left very satisfied with what the group achieved.

Every other element of the engagement was designed with the same intent. The venue had to be somewhere this group would never typically meet, and far enough from Denver that most participants would stay overnight, so that between the two days they'd remain in the mental context of the work rather than dipping back into daily life. We landed on a conference hotel in Colorado Springs. The room setup was my default for high-stakes work: a big circle of chairs, no tables, a flip chart, wall space to post things, and me.

The agenda itself drew on twenty years of accumulated practice: a technique I learned from my mentor in organizational development, elements of the Future Search process, an exercise adapted from my training as a Braver Angels facilitator, even black-and-white videos of J. Krishnamurti playing quietly in the corners of the room as participants arrived. All of it was arranged in a single coherent arc through what I call the three domains of the human mind: thought, emotion, and intuition.

The room

Over two days, people who had been often on the opposite side of policy issues began to see what they had in common. They began to listen to one another in ways they hadn't before. And they laughed together, too; one participant later shared that he hadn't laughed that much in a very long time. Both were doing the same work: when a group can be honest and at ease, it can think together in ways it never could before.

Somewhere in those two days, the group's understanding of itself turned. They stopped seeing themselves as separate organizations, each petitioning the healthcare system for its own interests. They realized that, collectively, they were the healthcare system, and that if they didn't step up and take accountability for the system as a whole, no one else was going to either.

What lasted

The group formalized its collaboration as the Colorado Health Policy Forum. It now works together to engage policymaking partners, improve Colorado's healthcare system, and hold itself to the principles and behavioral norms its members wrote together at the workshop.

With a gubernatorial election ahead, federal policy in flux, and a significant state budget shortfall, Colorado's healthcare system is going to change. Because of what this group built, there is now a table where the people who will shape that change already know how to work together.

Why it worked

The participants own their success; they did the thinking and took the risks. What I brought was the craft of making that easier, which is what "facilitate" literally means: knowing what it takes for a group of people to experience a genuine shift in mindset; a vast toolkit of methods held loosely, with no attachment to any one of them; a disarming curiosity that builds trust quickly, in interviews and in the room; and the clarity to execute a vision of success that appeared almost fully formed the day I read the RFP.

I write about this craft in Whole Mind Facilitation: How to Lead Workshops That Change People, Organizations, and the World.