Our fifth tip for successful collaboration, from the book Tools to Save Our Home Planet, published by Patagonia.
Revisit Tip #4 here
Tip #5 - Develop a Unique Collaboration Culture
The answers to the following set of questions determine the culture of a collaboration. Each organization that comes to the collaboration should consciously participate in shaping the collective by asking itself the following:
- How does our collaboration do things together?
- How do we meet?
- How formal or informal are the collaboration’s interactions?
- What is the tone and tenor of our communication with each other?
- What are the norms around how we use time?
- What is the rhythm of activities and gatherings?
Multistate renewable energy coalition, participant observation:
“Our meetings are fun. We have a lot of pride. It’s not insular – new junior leaders are accepted and appreciated. We realize that we need each other, so we take off our self-interest hats and try to look after the collective health of the network.”
Your collaboration’s culture begins forming from the very first steps it takes. For example, if one entity or organization serves as the convener, that organization unconsciously brings its own approach and culture to the early steps. Or, if a collaboration comes together around a threat or big opportunity, the early participants create a rhythm of working that might be fast-paced and very focused. The more history your collaboration has, the deeper the patterns of behavior and culture will be.
In the most functional collaborations we’ve observed, leadership supports early and regular efforts to examine these questions:
- Is the way we’re working together supporting the overall aims we want to address?
- How does our culture feed our collective efforts?
- How does our culture hold us back in our collective efforts?
The answers inform changes or tweaks the collaboration can make to intentionally create the desired culture.
Actions to Develop a Productive Culture:
- Create shared group agreements, intentions, or ground rules that name and support the values of the collaboration.
- Consider the collaboration’s meetings, gatherings, retreats, social time, and celebrations.
- Apply the collaboration’s values and collective intentions to core questions such as:
- How do we approach leadership in this collaboration?
- How will we engage with participants or members?
- How do we hold each other accountable to our commitments?
- How will we make decisions together?
- How will we explore and resolve conflicts that arise?
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