For over twenty-five years Larry Dressler has designed and facilitated high-stakes meetings in diverse settings that include corporate boardrooms, industrial disaster sites, and the Amazon rain forest. His clients have included Cisco Systems, Baxter Healthcare, Starbucks, 1% for the Planet, New Belgium Brewing, and the US Federal Protective Services. He is the author of Consensus Through Conversation.

• Shows that the key to effectively leading difficult meetings lies not in acquiring more tools and techniques but in mastering yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically

• Offers dozens of stories, exercises, and practices to help readers cultivate a grounded, compassionate, purposeful presence

• Draws on interviews with thirty-five renowned experts in facilitation, negotiation, training, organizational development, and leadership

Any time people get together to wrestle with serious issues, there is a potential for a high-heat meeting, one where participants become so polarized, angry, fearful, and confused that any meaningful work seems impossible. If you facilitate meetings for a living, you’ve probably found that your well-learned techniques often fail you in volatile and unpredictable situations like this. If you lead meetings as simply one part of your job, you doubtless feel even less able to cope.

The answer is not yet another technique—not something you do to people. Veteran facilitator Larry Dressler has learned the hard way that what makes the crucial difference is the leader’s presence. You have to develop skills that allow you to remain steady, impartial, purposeful, compassionate, and good-humored. To work with people in high-heat meetings, you have to work on yourself.

In Standing in the Fire Dressler outlines six “stances”—mental, emotional, and physical ways of being that will enable you to master yourself so you can remain firmly in service to the group. He offers dozens of simple but profound practices for cultivating these capabilities before, during, and after any meeting. Throughout the book Dressler draws not just on his own experiences—good and bad, humorous and harrowing—but also on the insights of thirty-five distinguished leaders, process facilitators, trainers, and change agents, all with an eye to helping you stay relaxed and focused enough to make the kind of inventive, split-second decisions these pressure-cooker situations demand.

In meetings, as in the natural world, fire can be creative rather than destructive—but only if handled skillfully. Larry Dressler gives you everything you need to become a masterful fire tender.