Research by Kolb and Rothwell (1999, 2000) found that a delay in action by small group facilitators allowed conflict situations to escalate. The moves and countermoves described by Folger and Poole (1984) and any dysfunctional individual group member behaviors, perhaps enabled by the behavior of group members (Keyton, 1999; Stohl and Schell, 1991) and unchecked by the facilitators, did not resolve the issues or move groups toward productive solutions. Rather, according to facilitators’ self-reports, failure to take action during the early stages of conflict allowed the situations to worsen. Some facilitators waited to act simply because they did not know what to do, or they did not expect the situation to spiral out of control as it did. If faced with a similar situation, facilitators agreed that taking early action was preferable to waiting and hoping that the situation would resolve itself. This leads to Principle 1.