Being a Catalyst for Community-based

Collaboration

The Compassion of Hospitality

The Presence of Association

The Giving of Gifts

Three Universal Properties of Powerful and Competent Collaborations

Why is it so difficult to

build collaborations

and lead change in complex

environments?

We want to see with what has organized our perceptions historically:

Through our mental models, in other words, we use our past to make sense of our present in an effort to predict and control the future…..

◦Bounded Rationality: The Penchant to find Best-Fit vs. Optimal

Solution

◦Sense-Making: The maps we construct to make sense

◦Social Construction: Collective effort to reduce to level of

manageable understanding

Forming our Mental Models

Who we are MattersMoments of Magnified Meaning Making:Our Mental Models at Work

Creating a shift in our mental models:

◦To People are unfinished works of progress, not problems to be fixed

◦To a belief in the social fabric

◦To associational life as central

◦To a focus on citizens

◦To a focus on Gifts and Possibility

Building Community Collaborative

Gift Mindedness

Think about when you’re at your best, what are the unique skills and knowledge you have?

What is the gift you’re here to bring in to the world? (Clue: It surprises you when others tell you about it).

Gift Mindedness

Process and Fundamentals

The Action of Change:New Possibilities

Force Field Analysis:

PresentSituation

DesiredSituation

(goal)

Resistance

Time

Strategies to achieve change

Transitional Period

Forces for ChangeForces for Maintaining The Status Quo

Take Stock of the Situation

Cultural Change for a

Community-based Collaboration

The culture of the group can be defined as:

A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group has learned as it solved problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, and feel in relation to those problems.

Organization Culture and Leadership, Edgar H. Schein, 1992

Gaining Support for Creating a Community Collaborative: The Underlying Change Process

Address stakeholders’ cultural support for change (values, attitudes, beliefs, norms)

Arouse attention, need, support for change (induce anxiety)

Develop desire for change (acknowledge benefits, negatives)

Use group members / composition of group to elicit support

Use informal community network (constructive gossip)

Overcome objections to change Resolve problems and difficulties as they arise

In the most successful efforts, people move through complicated stages in which they:

Create a sense of urgency and call to action Put together a strong enough team to direct the

process Create an appropriate vision Communicate that new vision broadly Empower stakeholders to act on the vision Produce sufficient short-term results to give their

efforts credibility and to disempower the cynics Build momentum and use that momentum to tackle

the tougher change problems Anchor the new behavior in the collaborative’s

culture

Have a well-defined goal that is clearly understood and communicated

Pay attention to its impact on stakeholders at all levels, Develop an integrated process and content change plan Recognize how much and what type of training is

required Recognize that there may be additional workload during

the transition, and new responsibilities after implementation

Determine the impact on resources, financial and otherwise

Avoid underestimating the impact of your plan

Planning for Collaborative:

Provide a clear vision and objectives that enable responsiveness at the local level

Focus on disadvantages of the present situation (if applicable)

Provide a plan with milestones Be consistent in messages, actions, and

rewards for desired behaviors Celebrate success

People need: Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Part

Understand the underlying issues

Build understanding, before seeking commitment

Confront the reality: It Is What It Is!

What’s the information/ data that supports your call to action?

Establish the “cost” of not changing!

Seeking to understand the challenges of Place Based Community Innovation

Define “Dialogues/Conversations” as the

Plans of Action

Initiate and convene conversations that shift people’s experience, which occurs through the way people are brought together and the nature of the questions/conversations that engage them.

The Conversations will build The Plan

From Plans to Action

Associational Life

What can this group create together, that you cannot create alone?

What are the possibilities that exist for you and your agency by your being here?

What declaration of Possibility can you make that has the power of to transform and inspire you?

What are the crossroads you’re at regarding a collaborative effort?

I am the possibility of _________________!

Two Additional Dialogues

The Action of Change

How valuable do we believe this approach to be?

How much risk are we willing to take? How participative do you plan to be? To what extent are you invested in the well-

being of the whole? What is the story we plan to create? What is the payoff for creating this new

story? What is the attachment to creating this new

future?

Conversation of Ownership

Adapted from Block, 2008

What promises am I willing to make? What measures have meaning for me? What price am I willing to pay? What is the cost to others for keeping or

failing my commitments? What is the risk that is a major shift for me? What is the promise I’m postponing?

Conversation of Commitment

What is your commitment in being here, what is it you will commit to while you’re here?

Primary Question for the Commitment Dialogue:

Key Questions for Ongoing Collaboration (Shaw, 2002)

What kind of sense are we making together?

What are we coming to talk about as we converse?

How are we shifting our understanding of what we are engaged in?

What kind of enterprise are we shaping?

Key Questions(Mangiofico, 2009)

What haven’t you discussed that if it were to happen would be a game changer?

What probabilities occur around this?

What is the capacity for flexibility and adaptability for emergent phenomenon?

What is/are the commitments people are willing to act upon?

Change Management activities of respondents with very good or excellent results

Educated others on the need for change and how the new project will operate

Built executive/ political support and sponsorship by giving presentations/holding conversations and encouraging involvement

Developed and implemented a communication plan to create awareness and commitment to the new narrative/project

Performed pilot tests and simulations

Change Management Activities of Respondents With Very Good or Excellent Results

Involved others and end users in project planning and design

Reviewed the process periodically and reinforced use of the new process

Implemented a formal change process

Clearly defined the process and process boundaries

Addressed resistance to change

Communicated and Held Ongoing Conversations!

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created--created first in the mind and will, created next in activity.

The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating.”

unknown

Bridge the best of “what is” and “what might be”

Challenge the “status quo”

It should be desirable

State it in affirmative and bold terms

Fit within the architecture of possibility

Participative process

Balance the management of continuity, novelty and transition

Good Provocative Proposition

There are only two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

What’s the next step you need to take that will empower you to achieve your collective dream?

How will you achieve this collective dream?

1. Create and ensure a shared vision and philosophy which encompasses the collective dreams, goals, and expectations.

2. Create, ensure and maintain a commitment to the “best” of what is possible.

3. Create and implement a comprehensive strategy to achieve the collective dream, incorporating accountability for all.

4. Continue to pursue self-reflection and growth developing insights and the requisite attitudes to achieve the envisioned collective dream.

Do you see opportunity; a future of possibilities?

Do you see a mystery?

Do you see adventure in the journey ahead?

Creating the Future:

Ah, but one’s reach should exceed one’s grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?

Robert Browning

The Art of Possibility

Know your own mission and part in achieving the dream

Make more informed decisions, go after the information you need…don’t make your knowing based on waiting for someone else to get around to telling you

Prepare and act to make a difference every day

Achieve your own highest level of effectiveness and performance

What you can do!

Get others involved in a conversation to start doing what is necessary to achieve the dream

Build toward long-term improvement, even while doing short-term work

Lead your own individual and the organization’s change; don’t wait for someone else to do it

Communicate powerfully, especially your commitment to the journey and the dream

What you can do!

Make the transition in to new ways of doing your role

Get the most out of your own personal commitment to growth

Always remember why you started this collaborative and cue yourself each day

Know that ingenuity, plus courage, plus work equals miracles!

What you can do!

Act as though everything you do makes a difference….

If you worry that one person cannot make that big a difference, remember what Margaret Mead said,

“It is surely the only thing that ever has!”

Support a cause, don’t just do your job. Trumpet an exhilarating story. Be a generator of enthusiasm. Embrace and promote optimism.

When you say, “I Will”, with conviction, magic begins to happen.

Willy Amos

Start a crusade for an alternative Future!

“Some people look at things the way they are, and ask Why?

I dream of things that never were, and ask,

“Why Not?”

Robert Kennedy

So, I would offer this:

Keep you feet on the ground…

And, keep reaching for the stars!

And now the journey continues….