Transcript Inter-Organizational Collaboration

Inter-Organizational
Collaboration
Thomas P. Holland, Ph.D., Professor
UGA Institute for Nonprofit
Organizations
What and Why?
• Many social problems exceed the capacities of any
single organization.
• We can provide better services to more consumers by
working together with another organization.
• Combining skills and resources from each results in
better outcomes than either could do alone.
• Voluntary and bounded pursuit of shared goal. No
transfer of ownership by either organization.
• Public perceptions that nonprofits duplicate services, are
poorly managed, wasteful, and inefficient have led to
mandates from some funders that nonprofits work
together more extensively.
• Regardless of that, many nonprofits have found it
possible to provide better services through collaborative
efforts with others.
Many ways nonprofits can link
• Networking: informal interactions, mutual support, no
goals
• Cooperation: semi-formal communications, sharing
information without any defined mission
• Collaboration, Partnership: formal links, voluntarily
shared resources to address a specific shared concern
• Outsourcing: contractual relationship in which one
organization agrees to have another carry out specified
functions, such as bookkeeping, payroll, taxes, office
cleaning
• Joint Venture: contractual relationship to address a
mutually shared goal, extensive planning, sustained
communication, designated resources provided by each
organization, each remains independent.
• Merger: one organization takes over another and its
resources, replacing other’s administrative structure and
reorganizing its staff and resources.
Benefits of Collaboration
• Benefits to services and clients
– Greater responsiveness to client needs
– Close gaps in services
– More comprehensive services
• Benefits to organization
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Increased legitimacy in community and with funders
Introduction of new ideas, expectations, practices
Improved strategic position, competitive advantage
Better access to resources
Reduced uncertainty and instability
Consider before seeking closer
linkages
• What do we want to accomplish that is beyond
our current resources, skills?
• How does that fit with our strategic goals?
• What do we think a collaboration could help us
do better?
• Is our organizational culture open to innovative
activities?
• Are there organizations out there that could
credibly contribute to our efforts?
• What could we offer in return? (reciprocity)
• How should we evaluate potential partners and
come to conclusions?
Further considerations
• How should we approach that organization and
test out our ideas?
• If leaders there are interested, then how do we
negotiate a mutually beneficial agreement?
– What specific goals do we want to address together?
– How should we structure the relationship?
– Who will do what, when, with what resources and
limits?
– How should we allocate expenses, income, deal with
losses?
– How should we deal with unexpected problems,
boundaries, exit strategy?
– How do we verify that other can deliver on promises?
Questions before beginning
• What do we have that another organization may
want (not what we wish they’d want)? What do
they have that we want?
• How will we ensure that the effort will contribute
to our mission?
• Do we have a realistic, persuasive plan that will
lead to success?
• Do we have the competencies to run the
proposed collaborative project?
• Are our people enthusiastic about it?
• Will the time and effort be worth the costs?
The collaborative project develops
life of its own
• People from each organization bring their
assumptions, habits of work, expectations,
vocabulary, which can impede trust.
• Goals and expectations of the collaborative
project should be clear and shared.
• Time required for participants to develop shared
ways of working on this project, patterns of work,
ways of solving problems
• Teamwork requires careful nurturing, patience
Guidelines for forming partnerships:
both partners should
• Already have excellent community reputations
• Identify mutually acceptable options to meet agreed
upon goals
• Offer and be known for high quality programs, services
and staff
• Define the specific areas for collaboration
• Make expectations both ways clear and documented.
• Set out conditions for assessing, continuing and
terminating partnership
• Prepare business plan
• Secure the resources needed to implement project
Requisites for effective collaboration
• Clear and shared goals for the effort, distinct from goals
of either organization.
• Identified resources, skills, people each will bring to table
and how they will be used
• Clear lines of authority, accountability
• Clear division of labor, who will do what, when, with what
resources and limits
• Shared understanding of how we will deal with problems,
differences, challenges, benefits
• Agreement on policies to guide the effort
• Mutual criteria for assessing progress toward goals.
• Write it all down in a contract (including escape clauses).
Four Stages of Collaboration
• Stage 1. Envision results by working
individual-to-individual. Starts with
conversations between 2+ people from
different organizations about shared goals.
• Challenges:
– Bring people together, invite participation
– Build trust, disclose organizational and selfinterests
– Confirm shared vision, what we hope to
accomplish, where and for whom
– Specify desired results, formulate strategic goals
and major actions
Second Stage of Collaboration
• Stage 2. Empower ourselves by working
individual-to-organization. Get clear authority from
respective organizations to pursue joint project,
empowering us to begin formal planning.
• Challenges
– Confirm organizational roles, authority, commitments
– Resolve conflicts and create process for handling
future conflicts
– Organize the effort, defining structure, roles, staff
allocations, operating resources
– Support the members with decision-making
procedures, communications channels, criteria for
assessment, rewards for successes.
Develop a Business Plan
• Description of the project, including primary
features, advantages, benefits, contributions
from each partner
• What each organization plans to do with it
• Justification that the plan is credible, including
supportive research
• Strategic goals and justifications
• Market analysis
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Who the users will be
Benefits they should get from the project
How and why will they will use it
How it will be promoted
More on basics of a business plan
• Staffing plan, including the expertise needed to
create and then operate the project
• Management plans: how the expert staff will be
organized, coordinated, led, paid, evaluated
• Financial plan: costs to establish the project,
operate it, budgets for first several years,
allocation of costs and benefits
• Analysis of each current organization, its
resources and programs, staff expertise, what
and how it will contribute to success of new
venture
Third Stage of Collaboration
• Stage 3: Ensure results by working organization-toorganization. Develop formal ways for organizations
to interact, joint systems and policies to support new
program.
• Challenges
– Manage the work by clearly defining vision and desired
results, accountability standards and procedures,
collaborative work habits
– Create joint systems by allocating resources and
responsibilities, formalizing links within program and
between it and home organizations
– Make sure reciprocal benefits are clear and continuing
– Evaluate the results, starting with clear evaluation plan,
criteria and steps for monitoring work and assessing
results
– Renew the effort, celebrating successes and using findings
to improve work and outcomes
Implement Project with an
Inter-Organizational Team
• Participants must share understanding, purpose
and commitment to shared goals
• Open communication of ideas and feelings
• Active participation and distribution of leadership
• Flexible use of decision-making procedures
• Encouragement and constructive management
of conflicts
• Equality of power and influence
• High group cohesion
• Strong problem-solving strategies
• Interpersonal effectiveness
• Positive interdependence
Designing Effective Teams
• Set clear goals and expected results to be produced by
team
• Identify expectations for team processes.
• Determine time frames for beginning and ending
• Determine the membership of the group, making sure
the needed skills are included, plus one person with
skills in facilitating and meeting management
• Identify the structure of the group
• Specify process expectations
• Identify any needs for training or materials
• Specify criteria for monitoring and assessing results
Designing Effective Teams II
• Identify costs and resources for team
• Plan and conduct the first meeting, including
charge to group, goals, timeframe, why
members selected
• Plan team-building activities to encourage trust
and positive working relationships among team
members
• Support team meeting and processes, as
requested by team leader
• Monitor team performance and provide feedback
as needed
Make success a team effort
• Be sure everyone knows what is expected of
her/him and how that links to group goals
• Articulate how each individual’s talents
contribute to success of the whole team (how do I
contribute to success of the effort?)
• Identify means for problem-solving and
accountability as a team (what will we do when
problems and barriers show up?)
• Specify methods for reporting and
communicating progress (how will we know it’s
done?)
• Monitor, evaluate, and report on results
• Find ways to reward and celebrate successes
Good Communication Always Important
• Everyone should submit periodic progress reports to
team leaders, with summaries to collaborating
organizations.
• Hold regular team meetings to discuss progress on
assignments, with individual/team summaries, open
feedback
• Learn to listen actively; ask for clarification, check to see
if others understand your point
• Demonstrate practices of open communications, asking
for and giving constructive feedback
• Encourage members to initiate discussions when tasks
accomplished or barriers encountered
• Solicit views of ways to deal with barriers; invite others to
help solve problems.
• Spread news of successes; show appreciation for others
There will be Conflicts
• Definition: when two or more values or
perspectives are contradictory in nature
• May be internal (within self) or external (between
two or more people).
• Conflicts are problems when they hamper
productivity, lower morale, cause inappropriate
behaviors if poorly handled.
• Conflicts are useful when they
– Raise important but unaddressed problems
– Motivate people to attend to them
– Help people learn how to recognize and benefit from
differences
Things that provoke team conflicts
• Poor communications, employees surprised by new
decisions, don’t understand reasons for decisions, come
to distrust supervisors
• Alignment of resources doesn’t match work
expectations, disagreement about who does what
• Personal differences, conflicting values and actions,
dislike of aspects of others (that we don’t like in
ourselves)
• Abuses of power, authoritarianism
• Inconsistent or uninformed leadership, passing the buck,
repeated poor handling of an issue, managers don’t
understand the jobs of subordinates.
Ways People Deal with Conflicts
• Avoid or ignore it. May worsen conflict over time.
• Accommodate: give in to others. May be useful when
you know you will have a better opportunity in the near
future.
• Compromise: mutual give-and-take when you want to
get beyond the issue
• Collaborate: seek ways of working together for mutual
goals without trying to solve issue
• Compete: Try to get your way, expressing strong
convictions about your position, seeking to persuade
others. May include efforts to discredit opposition.
• Warfare: polarizing the conflict, using formal and
informal power to undermine opposition and gain control
of organizational resources.
Supervisory Actions to
Minimize Conflicts
• Executives of both organizations must monitor progress
• Keep current on job responsibilities, making sure that
roles don’t conflict and no tasks fall into cracks
• Build positive relationships with staff, meet with them
regularly, ask about accomplishments and challenges
• Get regular status reports, including needs and planned
next steps
• Provide staff development opportunities on key aspects
of work
• Develop procedures for handling challenges, drawing
upon employees’ input
• Hold regular meetings to communicate status of projects,
resources and challenges, new initiatives
Monitor and Evaluate Project
• Start with the goals for the activity
• Identify indicators of progress toward each
goal
• Collect information regularly about
movement on each indicator
• Use findings to fine-tune work (formative
evaluation)
• Summary evaluation useful in planning
next collaborative projects
Monitoring and Evaluation
• Specify expectations and criteria for assessing work
• Provide informal feedback on performance when first
noted in work. Don’t allow negative build-up.
• Design formal appraisal method based on task
description, assignments, and expectations
• Applies to volunteers as well as paid staff
• Use standardized forms, available to everyone
• Include closed-ended ratings and space for comments
• Announce schedule to everyone, then stick to it
• Remind individuals of scheduled reviews
• Invite individuals to offer changes to job description and
to evaluation forms
More on Evaluation
• Record accomplishments, exhibited strengths and
limitations, recommendations for improvement
• Use observed behaviors of that individual, not hearsay or
rumor
• Invite person’s input, self-assessments,
accomplishments, needs for improvement
• Provide honest, constructive feedback based on own
observations
• Disagreements are acceptable; note them
• Nothing should be surprising if you have given informal
feedback as work has proceeded
• Allow person to add own statement at end of form
• Conclude with next steps for improving performance,
resources, and expectations for demonstrating change
Fourth Stage of Collaboration
• Stage 4. Endow continuity by working collaborationto-community. Develop increased support from the
community to support and increase influence on
systems that affect all.
• Challenges
– Grow visibility by conveying positive image to others and
to community, celebrating successes and promoting
results
– Involve others in community, teaching and modeling the
value of collaboration, bringing in other people and
organizations, holding public forums
– Change systems by understanding key aspects of present
systems, points of influence and leverage, identify
changes we want, specify actions to bring about changes
in systems
– Build ongoing community support, involving others in
shared goals, building relationships, creating sense of
mutual ownership
Conclusions
• Collaboration among organizations has many benefits to
partners, improving their services and their
organizational strengths.
• Developing any collaborative project requires careful
planning and oversight
• Developing strong teamwork among those implementing
project is essential
• Be sure everyone is clear about the goals and purposes,
reciprocal benefits, the allocation of resources,
expectations for the team and each member.
• Monitor and evaluate process and results carefully, using
findings to fine-tune the effort.
Exercise on Collaboration
• 1. Identify an issue your organization would like
to address (or do so more effectively), about
which you think another organization may also
have an interest.
• 2. What do you want to accomplish that is
beyond your organization’s current capacities
(that is, why do you need them)?
• 3. What do you think collaboration with that
organization would enable you to do that you
cannot do now?
Exercise, steps 4 - 7
• 4. What capacities/resources does that other
organization have that you need? How could
you find out?
• 5. What does your organization have that the
other one needs or wants? How could you find
out?
• 6. To what extent are your people (staff, board
members) ready to support collaborative efforts?
How will you check this out?
• 7. Who should approach someone there to test
the water about potential collaboration?
Exercise steps 8 - 11
• 8. Who should open the overtures to
whom there? Using what opening?
• 9. Then how should that person proceed?
• 10. What are we ready to offer the other
organization as inducements to proceed
with us? What do we do if we mis-judged
this?
• 11. If they are interested, then what will we
do? Who will do what, when?