5 Backbone Skills
Those responsible for coordinating and facilitating a cross-sector collaborative have a demanding, vital role. In the collective impact framework, this role is referred to as the “backbone.” The consulting firm FSG used that term, in part, because the role helps the collaborative stand up straight. The partners engaged in the collaborative are the hands, feet and heart of the collaborative, but the backbone assures alignment of the partners.
Performing the multitude of functions and activities required to engage and empower a diverse set of partners so that they can achieve shared goals together requires a diverse skillset. In more than a decade of working with dozens of collaboratives, I believe two procedural skills and three leadership skills are especially important for supporting a healthy, effective collaborative.
Procedural Skills
Breakthrough Facilitation: Meetings – whether one-to-one sessions or large stakeholder gatherings -- are inherent to the collaboration process. Meetings with a clear purpose that result in agreements of who will do what by when accelerate momentum. Redundant meetings that feel like a remake of the movie “Groundhog Day” send collaboratives into a downward spiral.
Tools and techniques developed by world class facilitators such as Sam Kaner and Adam Kahane are critical to facilitating four types of meetings that are common within cross-sector collaboratives:
- One-to-one sessions with existing or potential partners
- Small group meetings focused on developing or assessing collective actions
- Governance board meetings
- Stakeholder meetings designed to gain input and direction from diverse audiences
Collaborative Health Assessment: Collaborations move at the speed of trust. The paramount importance of trust requires collaborative coordinators to be constantly assessing the quality of the interactions among the players. This ongoing assessment is used to identify upcoming traps and opportunities, as well as to help partners better understand the positive changes generated by the collaborative. While this skill is technical in nature, and therefore relatively easy to develop, it is often neglected. Coordinators of collaboratives need to not only develop this skill, they need to apply it. Otherwise, they won’t have a good sense of how the partners are working together, and they won’t be able to showcase the value they are creating by helping the partners work better together.
Leadership Skills
Understanding Context: Context is defined as the “interrelated conditions in which something exists” and in a cross-sector collaborative the “interrelated conditions” are numerous and complex. They include the relationships among partners and stakeholders, conditions within the civic system that hold the status quo in place and external forces that shape outcomes (such as global economic forces). Partners within a collaborative are often focused on the context within their own organization. The collaborative leader needs to understand the context of each partner and the collaborative, and then help the partners understand and adapt based on the context. Collaborative leaders can use a variety of tools and techniques to sharpen these skills, including assessing the priorities, motivations and constraints of existing and potential partners; identifying and leveraging the polarities that create both tension and opportunity within a collaborative; and mapping the forces and interests that influence the collaborative’s outcomes.
Inquiry: The skill of asking new, compelling questions, and listening deeply to the answers they generate is essential to catalyzing change within complex civic systems. While organizational leaders are expected to have the answers, collaborative leaders need to be able to ask, and help others ask, questions that foster creative thinking, engage diverse stakeholders and foster new possibilities. Inquiry is risky business, as compelling questions often challenge the mindsets of powerful protectors of the status quo. To minimize the risk and maximize the value of asking new, compelling questions, leaders need to practice this skill.
Building Trust: A key responsibility of coordinators of collaboratives is to communicate in ways that build trust and create environments where partners can build trust with each other. Building trust demands an understanding of the elements of trust and how others view and value those elements. This leadership skill is intertwined closely with the breakthrough facilitation skill. Tools and techniques, including those developed by the Trusted Advisor, Stephen M.R. Covey and Bruce Hendrick, can help leaders enhance their trust building skills.
If you are responsible for coordinating a cross-sector collaborative, you have one of the most demanding jobs in your community. These five skills can help you succeed.
