Joan Roberts Consulting

I have been working with a multi agency-collaborative all summer. I started
on this project right around the time I finished my second book. The project
required a lot of consultation and qualitative research in a short period of
time so I had to put my efforts at blogging on the back burner.

The funder of this project dictated the process steps which were to be broad
based consultation and strategic planning.    Logically it sounded good- the
consultation and data gathering would create the rationale for change and
then the planning piece would create the vision and plan that would catalyze
the partnership towards its desired future. I came in after the
collaborative was already formed.

However, the collaborative now finds itself with a strategic and action plan
that used a participative consensus based decision-making process (Step 4 in
my 6 step model) but without enough buy-in from the decision makers that run
the member agencies.  Senior managers and EDs are too busy to participate in
every collaborative that asks for agency representation so they send
someone- a manager or a community developer or a front line worker.   These
representatives participated in the planning activities of the collaborative
despite much direction or guidance from their home agency.   Everything
proceeded smoothly until the time arrived to implement the plan. (This is
Step 5 in my 6 step model))  Now we find that the most people around the
table have little power to commit their agency to any of the joint decisions
in the plan.   Stalemate!

Partner agencies who have an organizational policy on collaboration and use
it to brief their staff before embarking on joining a collaborative could go
a long way to preventing this inertia.     I missed this key item in my
first book but made sure to address it in my new book Governance for
Collaboratives: A Guide to Resolving Power and Conflict Issues. Chapter 3
Getting your agency/department ready to partner! addresses this issue and a
sample organizational collaboration policy is included in the appendix.