Joan Roberts Consulting

10 Governance Traps for Collaboratives
 
Governance is especially important to inter-organizational collaboration because it’s about power and authority. When power and authority are clarified by an effective governance framework that spells out the methods of making decisions, identifies who can make those decisions, and includes a policy making process, conflict is normalized and regularized.  But as the number of collaboratives increase and the responsibility to represent organizational members gets assigned to staff unfamiliar with organizational governance many collaboratives don’t even think about governance.

If there is not a governance framework, most likely there is not enough structure to work through the issues that come up when implementing a shared vision and intervention strategies. In 10 Governance Traps Collaboratives Fall Into! I identify 10  predicaments  that collaboratives fall into that are related to the lack of governance structure.  Also the article covers  organizational dynamics common to collaboratives where members come to share information but don’t make decisions, where basic strategic questions go unanswered and decision-makers fail to address repetitive issues with policy.

1.       Many members believe they are just there to share information or act in some kind of advisory role. They believe they don't make decisions.

2.       Members are not clear about just what the problem or issue is they are there to work on.

3.       The collaborative does not clarify the decision making method they will use.

4.       The collaborative does not stick to the agreed decision making process.

5.       Collaborative members do not know there is a need for something called governance.

6.       The collaborative is not clear about what they have control over in terms of decision-making.

7.       ...

8.       ...

9.       ...

10.   ...

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