Collaborating For Impact

Collaboration is often seen as a palliative for the many wicked problems challenging our communities. These problems affect some of the most vulnerable and unempowered people in our community. They also carry significant implications for policy processes, programs of service and, ultimately, the budgets and resourcing of national and sub-national governments. The road to collaboration is paved with good intentions. But, as John Butcher and David Gilchrist reveal, ‘good intentions’ are not enough to ensure well-designed, effective and sustainable collaborative action. Contemporary policy-makers and policy practitioners agree that ‘wicked’ problems in public policy require collaborative approaches, especially when those problems straddle sectoral, institutional, organisational and jurisdictional boundaries. The authors set out to uncover the core ingredients of good collaboration practice by talking directly to the very people that are engaged in collaborative action. This book applies the insights drawn from conversations with those engaged in collaborations for social purpose—including chief executives, senior managers and frontline workers—to the collaboration challenge. Backed up by an extensive review of the collaboration literature, Butcher and Gilchrist translate their observations into concrete guidance for collaborative practice. The unique value in this book is the authors’ combination of scholarly work with practical suggestions for current and prospective collaborators.

“Offers practical guidance for how to work with diverse others, which is a precondition for confronting many of the complex challenges we face.” —Morris Rosenberg, President, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Collaboration is increasingly difficult and increasingly necessary. Often, to get something done that really matters to us, we need to work with people we don’t agree with or like or trust. Adam Kahane has faced this challenge many times, working on big issues like democracy and jobs and climate change and on everyday issues in organizations and families. He has learned that our conventional understanding of collaboration—that it requires a harmonious team that agrees on where it’s going, how it’s going to get there, and who needs to do what—is wrong. Instead, we need a new approach to collaboration that embraces discord, experimentation, and genuine cocreation—which is exactly what Kahane provides in this groundbreaking and timely book. “Kahane shows that people who don’t see eye-to-eye really can come together to solve big challenges. Whether in our businesses, our governments, our communities, or our personal lives, we can all benefit from this smart and timely book.” —Mark Tercek, former President, The Nature Conservancy and coauthor of Nature’s Fortune “Shows us how thinking and seeing differently can help us navigate this challenging landscape. Kahane abandons orthodoxy in taking on the most intransigent problems, showing us the path to effective action in a complex world.” —James Gimian, coauthor of The Rules of Victory “Collaborating with the Enemy belongs on the same shelf as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Machiavelli’s The Prince.” —Stephen Huddart, President, The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation

"Special collections and liaison librarian partnerships can have a tremendous impact on the work within the library and the university community. Designed to guide the reader through three different themes - collection stewardship; projects, research, and exhibitions; and instruction - Collaborating for Impact: Special Collections and Liaison Librarian Partnerships offers inspiration and case studies detailing how these departments can impact research, teaching, and learning by working collaboratively. With individual expertise and skillsets, librarians and staff are together better equipped to provide researchers with a holistic, well-rounded perspective on the research process and scholarship. Collaborating for Impact opens with an exploration of current collaboration between liaison and special collections librarians, including a thorough literature review. A proposed framework for acquiring general and special collections that document the history of the academy and remain responsive to campus curricular needs, and a tutorial on object-based pedagogy that can underpin such arrangements, follow. And finally, there are thirteen case studies that provide concrete examples of how to move the needle towards sustainable efforts and away from one-off examples. If special collections are destined to become the mainstay of the library, many more paths to deeper collaboration can and should be developed. Special collections and liaison librarian partnerships offer a good foundation from which teamwork can take root across administrative, physical, and cultural divides. This book addresses a gap in both special collections and liaison librarian literature, showing how librarians work together across library departments"--Publisher's description.

This practical guide shows how to facilitate collaboration among diverse individuals and organizations to navigate complexity and create change in our interconnected world. The social and environmental challenges we face today are not only complex, they are also systemic and structural and have no obvious solutions. They require diverse combinations of people, organizations, and sectors to coordinate actions and work together even when the way forward is unclear. Even so, collaborative efforts often fail because they attempt to navigate complexity with traditional strategic plans, created by hierarchies that ignore the way people naturally connect. By embracing a living-systems approach to organizing, impact networks bring people together to build relationships across boundaries; leverage the existing work, skills, and motivations of the group; and make progress amid unpredictable and ever-changing conditions. As a powerful and flexible organizing system that can span regions, organizations, and silos of all kinds, impact networks underlie some of the most impressive and large-scale efforts to create change across the globe. David Ehrlichman draws on his experience as a network builder; interviews with dozens of network leaders; and insights from the fields of network science, community building, and systems thinking to provide a clear process for creating and developing impact networks. Given the increasing complexity of our society and the issues we face, our ability to form, grow, and work through networks has never been more essential.

What makes the difference between your collaboration's failure or success? Collaboration: What Makes It Work, Second Edition answers this question with an up-to-date and in-depth review of collaboration research. This new edition also includes The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory.

Collaboration is often seen as a palliative for the many wicked problems challenging our communities. These problems affect some of the most vulnerable and unempowered people in our community. They also carry significant implications for policy processes, programs of service and, ultimately, the budgets and resourcing of national and sub-national governments. The road to collaboration is paved with good intentions. But, as John Butcher and David Gilchrist reveal, 'good intentions' are not enough to ensure well-designed, effective and sustainable collaborative action. Contemporary policy-makers and policy practitioners agree that 'wicked' problems in public policy require collaborative approaches, especially when those problems straddle sectoral, institutional, organisational and jurisdictional boundaries. The authors set out to uncover the core ingredients of good collaboration practice by talking directly to the very people that are engaged in collaborative action. This book applies the insights drawn from conversations with those engaged in collaborations for social purpose--including chief executives, senior managers and frontline workers--to the collaboration challenge. Backed up by an extensive review of the collaboration literature, Butcher and Gilchrist translate their observations into concrete guidance for collaborative practice. The unique value in this book is the authors' combination of scholarly work with practical suggestions for current and prospective collaborators.

Where collaboration is needed and silo working creates barriers to achieving this, the cost to organisations can be very high: a lack of shared learning and innovation; unproductive conflict and stress; and significant financial costs due to programme failures. Collaborating for Results focuses on the human reasons for unproductive silo working in organisations, combining psychology with broader organisation development theory and practice. The central theme is that a visible agenda for building and maintaining working relationships across organisations is required by those seeking competitive advantage. It describes the contours of working relationships at three levels - individual, team and organisation - and proposes practical actions en route to collaboration and high performance. In doing so it acknowledges the complexity of people and relationships, the interrelationship of the three levels and explains the value of developing Open Teams at the heart of an integrated approach to business and organisational development. Organisation silos can feel like different countries, or even parallel worlds. Even in a single organisation, people in separate divisions or teams can talk a different language and have different work cultures that they each find difficult to understand and relate to. David Willcock’s Collaborating for Results reframes organisation culture to bridge the divide, develop working relationships that save time and money and improve organisation performance.

Ensure Conversations About Collaboration Get Results. This book lays out the theory and practice of Collaborative Professionalism. Through five international case studies, the authors distinguish Collaborative Professionalism from professional collaboration by highlighting intentional collaborative designs and providing concrete examples for how to be more purposeful with collaboration. Additionally, the book makes Collaborative Professionalism accessible to all educators through clear take-aways including: Ten core tenets, including Collective Efficacy, Collaborative Inquiry, and Collaborating With Students. Graphics indicating how educators can move from mere professional collaboration to the deep and transformative work of Collaborative Professionalism. Analysis of which collaborative practices educators should start doing, keep doing, and stop doing Collaboration can be one of your most powerful educational tools when used correctly, and turned into action. This book shows you how.