"Anita Zimmerman, CEO of Interax Corp. is working to define the language of an entire industry"

By: Jan Spalding, Tribune Business Weekly, May 12, 1993.

SOUTH BEND -- When two business competitors go head to head, it's usually a matter of product vs. product. But in the case of two area communications specialists, going head to head meant putting heads together to produce just one product.

The joint-venture is their newly released book, "Facilitation...From Discussion to Decision" co-authored by A.L. Zimmerman, Ph. D., and Carol Evans.

"Friendly competitors," they call themselves. Evans markets her services more to the local market while Zimmerman, CEO of Interax in South Bend, markets her consulting, training, and facilitation services on a national scale.

The bookwriting process, which took about five years, may have taken a little longer than either expected, but both women's personal interests in the topic made the effort all the more essential.

"It's been a pet peeve of mine that the terminology for (facilitation) hasn't been defined...it ends up being used and talked about interchangeably with all kinds of other communication," Zimmerman said.

Both women agreed one of the book's real secrets was the approach of competitor collaboration. Still, the outline alone took a year to develop.

"It wasn't that it was such a monumental task...being competitors, we had to hammer out so many things. We found out that by talking through it, we believed very much the same things, but sometimes we would apply them differently," Zimmerman said.

Shared respect for the topic was their driving force. Because these two authors distinguish facilitation as it own -- almost artistic -- entity, they see defining the skill and establishing some guidelines on its use as their contributions to a developing industry.

"It is not that facilitation is new, it's just being used in a new way and that is a direct result of this whole onslaught of participative management and the advent of total quality management," Zimmerman said. "It's just now something that's on the edge of coming out."

Together, they agree one of the most important elements of facilitation is objectivity. "You have to be able to go in there with no vested interest in the outcome. Your (only) vested interest is in maintaining the integrity of the process," Zimmerman said.

She explains that the process of trying to get a group of people together on an issue requires someone who can deal with that process, who can manage all the concepts, who can use timing and who knows when to push and when to pull.

In her work with the book, as well as all the aspects of her career, curiosity about what people do, what drives them and where they want to go keeps Zimmerman learning and moving forward.

The book, to be released by Nichols Publishing this month, serves as a tool for facilitators and of course, the authors as well. Both Evans and Zimmerman look forward to having the text -- and its accompanying workbook, and videotape series, coming this summer and fall -- for their own training and facilitating.

The book serves as a first step for Zimmerman's eventual plan to establish an institute for long-term facilitation training and certification, of which currently, she said, there is no such standardization.

Businesses looking to begin the process may want to consider these questions of a prospective facilitator, Zimmerman said. Can they deal with volatile situations? Are they willing to explore some alternatives? Are they more interested in directing or in really guiding a group through a process? Many people aren't patient enough to deal with the whole process that facilitation sometimes takes, she said.

"There's a lot of instinct involved in (facilitation). That's what makes it very challenging. It's also what makes it a very good business tool right now because participative management groups aren't looking so much for someone to come in and show them the direction as much as they are looking for someone to come in and help them through the process, so they can come up with their own direction," she said.

For Zimmerman, challenging is the operative word. Challenge necessitates her motivation, and it's her curiosity, she found, that motivates her performance. "It's my absolute driving force."

Zimmerman and the four other Interax officers are professionals who have truly found the calling of their communications specialization.

In 1985, after receiving her doctorate in human communication from Indiana University, Bloomington, Zimmerman chose to return -- after a long time away -- to her hometown of South Bend. The decision was strategic, as she intended to open a centrally located branch office of the Boston communications firm she had consulted with since 1975.

However, the Boston firm, which dealt exclusively with Fortune 500 companies and governmental think tanks, was not interested in giving Zimmerman and her partner the flexibility they wanted -- of working with entrepreneurial, not-for-profit and some smaller operations.

So Interax grew as its own company -- attracting mostly national business clients as well as non-profits and some local clientele.

The convenience of being removed from their big-city competition is twofold -- operating expenses are about one-thirteenth of what they would be in Boston, Zimmerman said, and "Out here, the competition doesn't always know what you're up to." The area is central for the officers' weekly travel to client offices throughout the country and beyond.

Illustrating the "product" of a communications firm is never easy. At Interax, each officer is brings in his or her own specializations that create the whole. In a nutshell annotation, the range of products has included mediation, "the human side" or mergers and acquisitions, government interrelations, program design and implementation, training and workshop sessions, applied information systems and individual coaching.

Zimmerman tops her own list with facilitation, followed closely by her work in strategic management, communication and management training, program design and development, family business consulting...and on.

You may not have heard of Zimmerman or Interax because the company keeps a deliberate low profile, she explained. But the business in here, quietly creating concepts that are carried to a world-reaching scope.

Marketing efforts are seminar and conference-oriented and most importantly, word of mouth.

This August, by popular demand, Interax will be putting on it's first-ever public seminar in town. The focus will be on relationships -- business and non -- and understanding one another, Zimmerman said. Because she is most accustomed to planning and closed business activities, Zimmerman said this outreach will be yet another avenue for the firm.

It's hard to participate on local committees because so much of her time is spent away, Zimmerman said. What she can and does offer is valuable resource training and communication expertise to area non-profit organizations. This Interax does more on a seminar-style basis.

She also teaches communication courses for Notre Dame's Graduate School of Business and is involved in the university's Executive Development Programs.

The Interax Foundation was recently established to help support educational conferences and research, Zimmerman said. And while "Facilitation" is her first product, the plan is to continue with the move. Her next book, this time to be co-authored with a fellow Interax officer, will focus on expectations in a business environment.

"We're writing them because we need to use them. We're creating our own tools," she said.