Business, Accounting and Finance

BSBLDR803 Develop and cultivate

collaborative partnerships and relationships
BSBLDR803 Develop and cultivate collaborative
partnerships and relationships

Communicate to influence
relevant individuals and
stakeholders

Cultivate new and existing

partnerships with stakeholders

Establish positive collaborative

relationships

Lead establishment of a
partnership program

Establish reporting mechanisms

for partnership program
Introduction to Collaborative Partnering
 What is Collaboration?

• A mutually beneficial and well-defined

relationship entered into by two or more
[individuals or] organizations to achieve
common goals.
 What is Collaboration?
• Includes a commitment to:
– a definition of mutual relationships and goals;
– a jointly developed structure and shared
responsibility;
– mutual authority and accountability for
success;
– sharing of resources and rewards.  
Why Collaboration is Important
• Most human services are crisis-oriented.
• Services are generally administered by
dozens of rigid and distinct separate
agencies and programs and each have their
own:
• categories that reflect a particular focus
• sources of funding
• guidelines
• accountability requirements
• rules governing expenditure of funds
Why Collaboration is Important
• Agencies with pronounced dissimilarities in
professional orientation and institutional
mandates seldom see each other as allies

• Sufficient funds not available to provide

necessary prevention, support, & treatment
services to make lasting difference for
young people who must overcome multiple
problems and years of neglect.
 Efforts at service
integration/collaboration not new

• Such efforts have existed in this country

even before the start of the twentieth
century
– Example = settlement houses of late 1800s
working together to identify problems and
otherwise offer comprehensive services to
families.
Some essential elements of comprehensive service
delivery made possible through interagency
collaboration:

• Easy access to wide array of prevention,

treatment, and support services, no matter who
provides those services
• Techniques to ensure that appropriate services
are received and are adjusted to meet the
changing needs of youth and families
• A focus on the whole family
Some essential elements of comprehensive service
delivery made possible through interagency
collaboration:

• Families are empowered within an atmosphere of

mutual respect
• Continuity in delivery of services and support,
with trust-building relationships between workers
and family members
• Emphasis upon improved outcomes for children,
youth, and families, based upon realistic but high
expectations for achievement
– (List adapted from Melaville with Blank, 1991)
Consider before seeking closer linkages
• What do we want to accomplish that is beyond
our current resources, skills?
• How does that fit with our strategic goals?
• What do we think a collaboration could help us
do better?
• Is our organizational culture open to innovative
activities?
• Are there organizations out there that could
credibly contribute to our efforts?
• What could we offer in return? (reciprocity)
• How should we evaluate potential partners and
come to conclusions?
 Further considerations
• How should we approach that organization and
test out our ideas?
• If leaders there are interested, then how do we
negotiate a mutually beneficial agreement?
– What specific goals do we want to address together?
– How should we structure the relationship?
– Who will do what, when, with what resources and
limits?
– How should we allocate expenses, income, deal with
losses?
– How should we deal with unexpected problems,
boundaries, exit strategy?
– How do we verify that other can deliver on promises?
 Questions before beginning
• What do we have that another organization may
want (not what we wish they’d want)? What do
they have that we want?
• How will we ensure that the effort will contribute
to our mission?
• Do we have a realistic, persuasive plan that will
lead to success?
• Do we have the competencies to run the
proposed collaborative project?
• Are our people enthusiastic about it?
• Will the time and effort be worth the costs?
The collaborative project develops life of
its own
• People from each organization bring their
assumptions, habits of work, expectations,
vocabulary, which can impede trust.
• Goals and expectations of the collaborative
project should be clear and shared.
• Time required for participants to develop shared
ways of working on this project, patterns of work,
ways of solving problems
• Teamwork requires careful nurturing, patience
 Guidelines for forming partnerships:
both partners should
• Already have excellent community reputations
• Identify mutually acceptable options to meet agreed upon
goals
• Offer and be known for high quality programs, services
and staff
• Define the specific areas for collaboration
• Make expectations both ways clear and documented.
• Set out conditions for assessing, continuing and
terminating partnership
• Prepare business plan
• Secure the resources needed to implement project
 To determine whether interagency collaboration is the
"solution" to the lack of flexible, comprehensive, and
effective services in your community, ask:

1). Is the result I want to achieve beyond my

organization's ability, acting singly, to achieve?
(Do I need help?)

2). Are there other organizations and agencies that

desire similar results with whom my
organization can coordinate to better achieve
the results I want? (Is there someone who can
help?)
3. Will this collaboration also help other organizations
achieve the results they want? (Will they want to
help?)

4. Can I afford to spend the time required to develop a

collaborative relationship with those organizations?
(Is it worth the effort?)

5. Is my organization, from top to bottom, ready to

make the needed changes in our operations in order
to collaborate with others? (Can I make use of help
when it is provided?)
 These questions underscore:
• Need to identify common interests among the
organizations that will be expected to collaborate.
• Need to assure that each organization has
something to gain from the process.
• Fact that collaborative planning takes resources
and time as the potential collaborating
organizations have to learn about and establish
trust with one another.
• Recognition that interagency collaboration is a
means to an end and not an end in itself.
 Guidelines for Effective Collaborative
Planning

• Involve all key players - Commitment to

change must be broad-based and should include
the participation of not only those with the power
to negotiate change, but representatives from the
families (including children) whose lives will be
affected.
• Choose a realistic strategy - Partners need to
chose a strategy that reflects the priorities of
service providers, the public, and key
policymakers; the availability of resources; and
local needs.
 Guidelines for Effective Collaborative
Planning

• Establish a shared vision - Cooperative ventures are

based on a recognition of shared clients. Collaborative
partnerships must create a shared vision of better
outcomes for the children and families they both serve.
• Agree to disagree - Participants need to establish a
communication process that gives them permission to
disagree and uses conflict/resolution as a constructive
means of moving forward.
• Make promises you can keep - Setting attainable
objectives, especially in the beginning, is necessary to
create momentum and a sense of accomplishment.
 Guidelines for Effective Collaborative
Planning

• Build ownership at all levels - commitment to

change must extend throughout the organizational
structure of each participating agency. Inservice staff
training should allow staff time to air feelings about
proposed changes and to predict resulting outcomes of
the changes.
• Avoid "red herrings" - Partners should not let
"technical difficulties" impede the development of a
shared vision. Most differences usually result from
misunderstandings or from policies that can be changed or
otherwise accommodated. They should not be allowed to
become convenient excuses for partners not fully
committed to working together.
 Guidelines for Effective Collaborative
Planning
• Keep your eyes on the prize - It is easy for collaborative
initiatives to become so bogged down in the difficulty of day-to-day
operations and disagreements that they lose sight of the forest for the
trees. We are striving for better outcomes and more successful
futures for our children and families.
• Institutionalize change - Participants must incorporate
partnership objectives into their own institutional mandates and
budgets, and earmark the permanent flow of adequate resources to
keep joint efforts going.
• Publicize your success - Interagency partnerships are a
promising conduit for the large-scale creation and delivery of
comprehensive services to children and families. Well-publicized
results that consistently meet reasonable objectives will go far to
attract the funding necessary to replicate and expand innovation.
 Strategies for Engaging Families and
Communities
• If services are to be more flexible, comprehensive, and
effective, workers at the frontline-teachers, social
workers, health practitioners, and community service
workers-must be supported in their work with children
and their families.
• This support may require a redefinition of job
responsibilities, restructuring of organizational support for
these workers, and retraining to assume these new
responsibilities.
• From the perspective of children, youth, and families,
successful interagency collaboration should mean that
their needs are identified and met in a manner that
involves a partnership with the family.
 Frontline service providers must be
prepared to:
• Listen to and understand needs of whole family
• Establish relationships with children and families that allow them to
meet these needs
• Develop and implement strategies that empower families to make
appropriate decisions leading to self sufficiency
• Know the resources available within the community to meet special
needs which they cannot be meet
• Communicate with other service providers who can provide
resources to family
• Establish teamwork with other workers when children and families
need services from several organizations at once
• Build community relationships and connections with organizations and
individuals who can help support children and families
 To be successful, frontline workers must:

• Receive training so they can respond to a wide variety of

child and family needs
• Have access to professional advice and support on new
issues as they arise, including training in assuming
non-educational roles
• Have job expectations which recognize the time it takes to
communicate and coordinate with families and children
and with other workers in the system
• Be treated with professional respect and rewarded for
using discretion
• Have job expectations which recognize the time it takes to
identify and involve community organizations and
individuals in supporting children and families
• "Collaboration involves parent and professional,
professional and child, parent and parent,
professional and professional, agency and
parent, federal and state administrators, and
others. Collaboration will not look the same for
all families and professionals. Some
collaborative relationships will be simple to
develop, others will be much more complex and
demanding. Collaboration must be developed
between and among all of us."

– -- Mattessich, P. and Money, B. (1992). Collaboration:

What Makes It Work, p. 7.
 Why Collaboration is Important
• No one can do it alone. Improving the quality of
life and the education of children with disabilities
and their families requires the collective
knowledge, skills, experience and expertise of all
family members and professionals. It requires
that the community and all service systems work
together to achieve the goals of the child and
family."
– -- Ibid.
 The changing nature of public program
management and service delivery
• We have moved from hierarchy (command and
control within organizations) to markets and
market-modelled management (the “New Public
Management”) to collaborative network
management organized around public-private and
cross-sector partnerships
• Move toward recognizing a plurality of stakeholders
for virtually any program
• Move from governments to governance
“Public management is getting things done through other organizations”
(Metcalfe & Richards, 1990, p220)
 Networked or partnered programs
It has become a critical managerial ability and an
essential part of the public manager role to be able to
create and leverage participation in network-based
programs. Pertinent are such organizational processes
as increased internal-external linkages and connectivity;
partnerships, alliances, and coalitions; cross-boundary
teams; interdependencies; strategic alliances (with
agencies which are at times competitors, at times
collaborators), involving people from disparate venues
and agencies; building consensus; ensuring that
contractors are accountable; encouraging the
involvement of stakeholders; participating in public
dialogue; creating a joint knowledge base.
 Collaborative Relationships
• Some are informal, essentially inter-personal, one-to-one
relationships across agencies
• More formalized, contractual collaborative relationships, as
well
• Partnerships between and among organizations mediated
by individual brokers and ‘boundary-spanners’
• Strategic alignment along interorganizational lines is crucial
• Collaborative networks require holistic analysis, consistent
with systems theory (Chen, Chapter 1).
• While it is important to fashion strategic consensus, one
needs to be careful with the insular tendencies of networks
(Rivera-Rogers)
• One also needs to balance participatory management and
evaluation with direction sufficient to a particular program.
 Systems complexity and systems-level
interventions
System dynamics are inherently complex
• Constantly changing;
• Governed by feedback;
• Non-linear, history-dependent;
• Adaptive and evolving;
• Characterized by trade-offs;
• Characterized by complex causality—coordination complexity,
sequencing complexity, causal complexity due to multiple
actors and influences, etc.
• There’s too much focus in evaluation on a single intervention
as the unit of analysis;
• Understanding connectivity between programs is important;
• Many complex interventions require programming (and
therefore also evaluation) at multiple levels, e.g., at the
community, neighborhood, school and individual level;
• Multilevel alignment is required across interventions.
 Network Theory
• Derived from ‘group theory’ in sociology and anthropology,
network theory describes intricate sets of formal & informal
relationships which create both functional and dysfunctional
forms of complexity;
• Actor autonomy is pulled by forces of inter-dependency, and
of power- and resource-dependency
• Networks involve the exchange of information and resources
• Involves complementarity of roles, functions, capabilities
• Reflects and grows out of the ‘hollowing out’ of the state
• Entails shared knowledge & interorganizational learning
• From relatively stable internal networks to dynamic and
changeable trans-organizational networks; networks may
institutionalize over time (e.g., the United Way).
 Network questions
• Why enter network relationships (partnerships, alliances,
collaborative networks?
• What resources become available when you enter a network?
• What position is held in the network by one’s own
organization?
• How easy is access?
• How do members view each other?
• What is to be gained by joining a network?
• Is there true partnership or mere agglomeration?
• How do you derive value from network-building activities?
– Increased visibility?
– Fundraising with more connections?
– Empowered policy advocacy?
• How much do you give up building the network rather than
your organization? What are the tradeoffs?
 Managing Interorganizational Relationships
• Managing across jurisdictions
• Managing different stakeholders
• Managing implementation
• Managing exchanges
• Managing incrementally
• Managing negotiations
• Managing multiple network functions:
❑ Diffusion: Rapid spread of ideas, policy innovations, via influential
opinion leaders and early technology adopters (Rogers)
❑ Alignment: Aligning ideas, efforts toward a common set of goals
❑ Mobilization: Reaching stakeholders and motivating them to act
❑ Exchange: Sharing of information, knowledge, other resources
❑ Advocacy: development of a collective voice for change
❑ Delivery: Bringing resources and assistance to increase capacity
Program partnerships as types of network
• Leverage expertise and strength of each program to
deliver improved outcomes
• Often requested in grants
• Like individual members of teams, agency network
members bring to the given enterprise their own network
resources
• Examples of program partnerships? When you have
worked in one, have you felt as though collaboration was
real?
• Is it possible to develop partnership-wide plans (strategic,
functional—fund-raising, collaborative research)?
• What are the challenges of evaluating partnerships and
other networks?
 Defining characteristics of effective
inter-organizational and inter-sectoral
networks
• They are integrated (some with substantial centralization,
even if the centrality of different actors changes and the
identities and roles of central actor(s) change;
• They are most likely to be found in situations when fiscal and
human resources are relatively plentiful and where
information asymmetries are minimal;
• They are most likely under conditions of stability in
intergovernmental and interorganizational fiscal relations;
• They require social capital (i.e., trust-based relationships) as
much as they do fiscal and human capital;
• They have or come to have shared values & commitments;
• They are capable of generating aligned, conjoint strategies
Effective Collaboration
 Requisites for effective collaboration
• Clear and shared goals for the effort, distinct from goals of
either organization.
• Identified resources, skills, people each will bring to table
and how they will be used
• Clear lines of authority, accountability
• Clear division of labor, who will do what, when, with what
resources and limits
• Shared understanding of how we will deal with problems,
differences, challenges, benefits
• Agreement on policies to guide the effort
• Mutual criteria for assessing progress toward goals.
• Write it all down in a contract (including escape clauses).
 Four Stages of Collaboration
• Stage 1. Envision results by working
individual-to-individual. Starts with
conversations between 2+ people from
different organizations about shared goals.
• Challenges:
– Bring people together, invite participation
– Build trust, disclose organizational and
self-interests
– Confirm shared vision, what we hope to
accomplish, where and for whom
– Specify desired results, formulate strategic goals
and major actions
 Second Stage of Collaboration
• Stage 2. Empower ourselves by working
individual-to-organization. Get clear authority from
respective organizations to pursue joint project,
empowering us to begin formal planning.
• Challenges
– Confirm organizational roles, authority, commitments
– Resolve conflicts and create process for handling future
conflicts
– Organize the effort, defining structure, roles, staff
allocations, operating resources
– Support the members with decision-making
procedures, communications channels, criteria for
assessment, rewards for successes.
 Develop a Business Plan
• Description of the project, including primary
features, advantages, benefits, contributions from
each partner
• What each organization plans to do with it
• Justification that the plan is credible, including
supportive research
• Strategic goals and justifications
• Market analysis
– Who the users will be
– Benefits they should get from the project
– How and why will they will use it
– How it will be promoted
 More on basics of a business plan
• Staffing plan, including the expertise needed to
create and then operate the project
• Management plans: how the expert staff will be
organized, coordinated, led, paid, evaluated
• Financial plan: costs to establish the project,
operate it, budgets for first several years,
allocation of costs and benefits
• Analysis of each current organization, its
resources and programs, staff expertise, what and
how it will contribute to success of new venture
 Third Stage of Collaboration
• Stage 3: Ensure results by working
organization-to-organization. Develop formal ways for
organizations to interact, joint systems and policies to
support new program.
• Challenges
– Manage the work by clearly defining vision and desired
results, accountability standards and procedures,
collaborative work habits
– Create joint systems by allocating resources and
responsibilities, formalizing links within program and
between it and home organizations
– Make sure reciprocal benefits are clear and continuing
– Evaluate the results, starting with clear evaluation plan,
criteria and steps for monitoring work and assessing results
– Renew the effort, celebrating successes and using findings to
improve work and outcomes
 Implement Project with an
Inter-Organizational Team
• Participants must share understanding, purpose
and commitment to shared goals
• Open communication of ideas and feelings
• Active participation and distribution of leadership
• Flexible use of decision-making procedures
• Encouragement and constructive management of
conflicts
• Equality of power and influence
• High group cohesion
• Strong problem-solving strategies
• Interpersonal effectiveness
• Positive interdependence
 Designing Effective Teams
• Set clear goals and expected results to be produced by
team
• Identify expectations for team processes.
• Determine time frames for beginning and ending
• Determine the membership of the group, making sure the
needed skills are included, plus one person with skills in
facilitating and meeting management
• Identify the structure of the group
• Specify process expectations
• Identify any needs for training or materials
• Specify criteria for monitoring and assessing results
 Designing Effective Teams II
• Identify costs and resources for team
• Plan and conduct the first meeting, including
charge to group, goals, timeframe, why members
selected
• Plan team-building activities to encourage trust
and positive working relationships among team
members
• Support team meeting and processes, as
requested by team leader
• Monitor team performance and provide feedback
as needed
 Make success a team effort
• Be sure everyone knows what is expected of her/him and
how that links to group goals
• Articulate how each individual’s talents contribute to
success of the whole team (how do I contribute to success
of the effort?)
• Identify means for problem-solving and accountability as a
team (what will we do when problems and barriers show
up?)
• Specify methods for reporting and communicating progress
(how will we know it’s done?)
• Monitor, evaluate, and report on results
• Find ways to reward and celebrate successes
 Good Communication Always Important

• Everyone should submit periodic progress reports to team

leaders, with summaries to collaborating organizations.
• Hold regular team meetings to discuss progress on
assignments, with individual/team summaries, open
feedback
• Learn to listen actively; ask for clarification, check to see if
others understand your point
• Demonstrate practices of open communications, asking
for and giving constructive feedback
• Encourage members to initiate discussions when tasks
accomplished or barriers encountered
• Solicit views of ways to deal with barriers; invite others to
help solve problems.
• Spread news of successes; show appreciation for others
 There will be Conflicts
• Definition: when two or more values or
perspectives are contradictory in nature
• May be internal (within self) or external (between
two or more people).
• Conflicts are problems when they hamper
productivity, lower morale, cause inappropriate
behaviors if poorly handled.
• Conflicts are useful when they
– Raise important but unaddressed problems
– Motivate people to attend to them
– Help people learn how to recognize and benefit from
differences
 Things that provoke team conflicts
• Poor communications, employees surprised by new
decisions, don’t understand reasons for decisions, come to
distrust supervisors
• Alignment of resources doesn’t match work expectations,
disagreement about who does what
• Personal differences, conflicting values and actions, dislike
of aspects of others (that we don’t like in ourselves)
• Abuses of power, authoritarianism
• Inconsistent or uninformed leadership, passing the buck,
repeated poor handling of an issue, managers don’t
understand the jobs of subordinates.
 Ways People Deal with Conflicts
• Avoid or ignore it. May worsen conflict over time.
• Accommodate: give in to others. May be useful when you
know you will have a better opportunity in the near future.
• Compromise: mutual give-and-take when you want to
get beyond the issue
• Collaborate: seek ways of working together for mutual
goals without trying to solve issue
• Compete: Try to get your way, expressing strong
convictions about your position, seeking to persuade
others. May include efforts to discredit opposition.
• Warfare: polarizing the conflict, using formal and informal
power to undermine opposition and gain control of
organizational resources.
 Supervisory Actions to Minimize
Conflicts
• Executives of both organizations must monitor progress
• Keep current on job responsibilities, making sure that roles
don’t conflict and no tasks fall into cracks
• Build positive relationships with staff, meet with them
regularly, ask about accomplishments and challenges
• Get regular status reports, including needs and planned
next steps
• Provide staff development opportunities on key aspects of
work
• Develop procedures for handling challenges, drawing
upon employees’ input
• Hold regular meetings to communicate status of projects,
resources and challenges, new initiatives
 Monitor and Evaluate Project
• Start with the goals for the activity
• Identify indicators of progress toward each
goal
• Collect information regularly about
movement on each indicator
• Use findings to fine-tune work (formative
evaluation)
• Summary evaluation useful in planning next
collaborative projects
 Monitoring and Evaluation
• Specify expectations and criteria for assessing work
• Provide informal feedback on performance when first
noted in work. Don’t allow negative build-up.
• Design formal appraisal method based on task description,
assignments, and expectations
• Applies to volunteers as well as paid staff
• Use standardized forms, available to everyone
• Include closed-ended ratings and space for comments
• Announce schedule to everyone, then stick to it
• Remind individuals of scheduled reviews
• Invite individuals to offer changes to job description and to
evaluation forms
 More on Evaluation
• Record accomplishments, exhibited strengths and
limitations, recommendations for improvement
• Use observed behaviors of that individual, not hearsay or
rumor
• Invite person’s input, self-assessments, accomplishments,
needs for improvement
• Provide honest, constructive feedback based on own
observations
• Disagreements are acceptable; note them
• Nothing should be surprising if you have given informal
feedback as work has proceeded
• Allow person to add own statement at end of form
• Conclude with next steps for improving performance,
resources, and expectations for demonstrating change
 Fourth Stage of Collaboration
• Stage 4. Endow continuity by working
collaboration-to-community. Develop increased
support from the community to support and increase
influence on systems that affect all.
• Challenges
– Grow visibility by conveying positive image to others and to
community, celebrating successes and promoting results
– Involve others in community, teaching and modeling the
value of collaboration, bringing in other people and
organizations, holding public forums
– Change systems by understanding key aspects of present
systems, points of influence and leverage, identify changes
we want, specify actions to bring about changes in systems
– Build ongoing community support, involving others in shared
goals, building relationships, creating sense of mutual
ownership
Any
Questions?