Our sixth tip for successful collaboration, from the book Tools to Save Our Home Planet, published by Patagonia.
Revisit Tip #5 here
Tip #6 - Build a Practice of Reflection
Regional landscape partnership, participant observation:
“Define what success looks like and then revisit it often. We framed success for the coalition as both the ideal end-goal, and how the steps along the way built the partnership’s power. And we look at what we are learning, seeing, and doing to keep adjusting our path.”
Given the pressing nature of many health and environmental threats, collaborations can often fall into the trap of urgent and constant action. We press on with the next meeting, the next element of strategy, the next action. Pushing the pause button to step back from the action and reflect is hard.
In the context of collaborative efforts, we encourage leaders to embrace the complexity and change inherent in collaborative work, and to apply an adaptive strategy approach. Rather than thinking that you can plan things out step-by-step for the next three years (a classic old-school strategic planning approach), invite collaboration members to work together and chart a directional path that creates excitement and buy-in.
Collaborations function well when they free themselves to see their work as experimental. With this mindset, the members can move away from working to find the “perfect” strategy or the “best” activity. Instead, the collaboration can identify actions to try or experiment with that can test an approach.
An experimental approach creates a powerful cycle of learning that feeds a collaboration’s impact and sense of accomplishment. After defining and running the experiment, one can step back and measure the experiment’s relative success or failure. It’s possible to measure learnings and then redesign a new experiment based on takeaways.
Actions to Build a Practice of Reflection:
- Build in small bits of reflection in a regular way. For example, at the end of meeting, close with reflective questions such as:
- What did you learn or gain from this meeting?
- What appreciations or regrets do you have as we end our time together?
- What do we need to focus on next as a follow-up?
- What are you more aware of for our collaboration work because of this meeting?
- Create regular cycles of reflection by using regular surveys to get feedback from members on their needs and what they’re seeing or experiencing.
- For subgroups in your collaboration, encourage them to name and share with the full collaboration what is working and why it’s working for them.
- As your collaboration’s leadership group creates its plans and activities, begin the planning process with a scan of what’s working well, why it’s working well, and what lessons have emerged that you want to carry forward.
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