Ingredients for successful collaboration

Key lessons we’ve learned through projects about what makes collaborations effective

Drawn from research and interviews covering: SSI, Tea 2030, Dairy 2020 and others

08.08.2014

Note:• The following set of ingredients were gathered from

research and interviews on what makes collaborations effective, done after collaborative projects (SSI, Tea 2030, Dairy 2020) and personal reflections from a range of other projects (including phase 2 of the SSI; Walmart and Target; CDHC work with apparel brands; Organic Cotton Accelerator; the Scaling Up project).

• These were reviewed, clustered and prioritised with the Lab team in preparation for the Forum Network Event on 16 September 2014.

• The next step will be to refine them into a set of materials (ingredients list, recipe cards, ppt slides), together with the Comms team, by 30st August.

Criteria for selecting ingredients• Relevance and importance for collaboration• Shareable and transferable• Can feature at network event for a “deep dive”• Represent a range of different types of

collaboration and flagship processes.

Ingredients for successful collaboration

8. people-centred process

9. trust, strong relationships

10. management of competition issues

11. senior level commitment

12. credible, experienced facilitation

13. external comms

14. time & skill to nurture relationships

1. clear, shared objective

2. big picture & learning about the system

3. clear, adaptive structure

4. sound governance

5. strong anchor partners

6. creative strategic tools (like futures)

7. diverse representation of the system

Ingredient: a clear, shared objective

• To collaborate you need a strong, clear common purpose. This can be a case for action, principles, vision or goal. This needs to be a burning platform (or built into one through the process). Make sure you are clear around it from the start.

• It’s vital for group building and can help a group get through moments of flabbiness or challenge. It can harness the diversity in a group to work together.

• Set the bar for the aim high – it motivates the group to stretch. The aim must be stretching for outcomes to be.

• Not everyone will buy in to the idea at first – don’t let that put you off. It can help to keep detractors close so you can understand and manage their concerns. Sometimes a critical voice in the group can even galvanise support.

• Manage the collective tone / ethos behind the purpose: if it’s easy you probably don’t have enough different perspectives; but ultimately an agreed purpose and aim is essential.

Ingredient: big picture and learning about the system / sector• The more all participants, including the convener,

understand about the system, the more they can design solutions around how it actually works and work together on changing it.

• Learn about the system up front, the power dynamics within it, where the centres of power lie and what their interests are.

• Understand the system’s readiness for change. Some systems are more ripe for change than others – i.e. have more awareness and buy-in as to the need to work collaboratively.

• Make an assessment of where you’re at on the basis of an initial scoping study.

• A less ripe system doesn’t mean you don’t ‘intervene’ but you might do it differently from the way you originally intended.

Ingredient: big picture and learning about the system / sector (2)

• A scoping study or case for action helps partners see the bigger picture of the system and the need for change and can remind them to keep focused on that when things get challenging.

• Building a whole picture of the system or sector is a huge benefit to participants of the process, and enables collaboration on a wide range of sustainability issues.

• Be clear that everyone starts with a partial picture that will evolve over time as they create the big picture together.

Ingredient: clear, adaptive structure• Be as clear as possible about the project’s structure,

stages and milestones, even if you don’t know what the outcome will be. Map out the structure so people know what they’re committing to.

• This sets the stages of the work, while giving flex in defining the detail in each phase.

• Create a structure that will support the group through the challenges. Collaboration is easy when developing a vision; it’s harder when doing stuff that counts.

• Embed the next stage in the current one (know what you want to do next). Finish each stage with a decision about what the collaborative platforms are – this helps keep the momentum. Plan for a long process – building consensus takes time, and people need to be prepared to be in it for the long haul.

Ingredient: clear, adaptive structure (2)• Prioritise time on diagnosis and innovation

Allow plenty of time for diagnosis. The more you understand about the issues, the easier it will be to come up with potential solutions.

Link innovation to outcomes. Make sure the vision and case for action allows you to do / give you sufficient material for diagnosis.

Problem solving coalitions tend to be in smaller groups, so it’s easier to “try out stuff”. Here you can jump more quickly to innovation

• Build in ways to maintain momentum• it helps to have deadlines by which share information, key

milestones for communicating etc. This can drive progress when things are otherwise stuck.

• Build in flexibility – sometimes plans need to change.

Ingredient: clear, adaptive structure (3)

• Think through implementation phases from the start, and build into the project plan and budget. What is the thing that will make people want to commit to the outcomes, and stick around after the final report is published? It might be a vision, manifesto or other.

• Plan for the implementation mechanism (i.e. a manifesto) from the start, socialize people to the idea, canvass to make as many as possible sign up and – finally – publicize it.

• Do not expect to get to the end of the project and achieve change; build implementation from the get go (and manage expectations with the coalition about this) even if they can’t take shape till later.

Ingredient: trusted governance• It is critical that the project is seen as an independent,

truly multi-stakeholder initiative, and a Steering Group can help achieve that. Have a rotating presidency/chairmanship, and an independent convenor.

• This builds confidence, and ensures agreements are tailored for the particular needs of each project.

• The convener needs a prominent senior presence to talk to the boards, deal with high level conflicts with the other steering groups members, develop peer – to- peer communications within the group.

• Different stages of the project may need different types of governance (i.e. workstreams / innovation).

Ingredient: strong anchor partners / core group• Start a project with strong anchor partners. They bring in others,

help develop funding, set the bar high Find people who have a burning platform and start the group from there.

• Build a core group of industry leaders that acts as an attractor for other participants to drive and build the wider group. Get members to recruit other members and make this responsibility explicit in the forming of the group.

• The core group makes sure the business case for joining is strong; understands the issues, challenges and motivators for target members and helps to recruit them. The group helps demonstrate that the project will bring value to member companies. Potential recruits will be looking at whether the composition of the core starting group sends out the right signals about their leadership.

• Critical partners are important to involve in the process, so that we choose issues that mean something to them. It’s crucial that partners take on the work and ‘own’ the outcome, demonstrate commitment and communicate it themselves.

Ingredient: creative strategic tools (like futures)You need creative tool such as Futures to challenge assumptions, make the case for change and imagine a different future. Using factors, scenarios and other futures tools helps partners to:• imagine how different the industry might be.• think across the board through the whole value chain.• spot and act on challenges they might not be looking at.• Futures approach can rally people together, and flush out the

tricky issues in a common forum. It is also engaging and, once involved, people tend to return to the workshops and want to know what happens next.

• Draw on other creative tools too – ones that challenge assumptions and help people look in new ways.

Magicingredient

Ingredient: diverse participation across the system

• To understand the system and how to change it, the group’s composition should mirror the global system, industry or supply chain and represent diverse perspectives across it– at least enough to be a credible sample.

• Diversity in the group is important. You need a mix of people who will bring unusual or challenging views. The group and process needs to work with (and embrace) difference.

• The diversity of perspectives and motivations for joining should be spread across multiple levels – environmental, social, economic, etc., and represent the global spread.

• Know the power dynamics within the system, where the centres of power lie and their interests.

Ingredient: people-centred process• Talk about process early on, like how to handle conflicts.• Build in time for reflection – times when participants can

be alone, think things over, settle, calm things down. Difficult conversations need time to work through and resolve. Don’t try to rush the process. Build in an overnight stay between sessions, or dedicated reflection sessions with a reflective process (freefall writing, visualisation etc.).

• Review, learn and celebrate at each stage. Celebrating milestones encourages the group and supports momentum, and helps the group get through stuck points. Not everyone may be happy with what’s been achieved in that stage, but celebrate what has been done, learn from it, close, and move on.

Ingredients: people-centred process (2)• Build in different styles of learning (from information to

reflection to experience, etc.). This strengthens and embeds learning, appeals to different learning styles and facilitates translating learning into action.

• Make the process visual: Moments when information and ideas come together in visual form can be major highlights for participants; seeing some clarity emerge from complexity is highly motivating. Use facilitation aids that can pull the pieces together and make the emerging picture visible.

• Seeing is believing: i.e. road trips, demonstrations. People see even more deeply if they do it as a collective.

• Facilitate group forming as part of the process to develop relationships and build trust within the group.

Ingredient: trust, strong personal relationships

• Get the relationships right. A strong group, bonded by personal relationships is fundamental to successful collaboration. The group needs to be able to discuss things openly, sometimes be confrontational, have difficult conversations and come up with joint solutions.

• Building / maintaining the whole group relationship is important in all stages – including the workstream stage when participants are working in smaller, more disparate groups

• Establishing a common purpose early on is key.Magicingredient

Ingredient: trust, strong personal relationships (2)

• Facilitating group forming is critical. Forming an effective group takes time and is built through shared experiences.

• Find ways to fast track the group forming stage (especially, for example, in making a faster problem solving coalition).

• This level of group building needs time, ideally in informal, less structured activities. Get people to do something together. Make it challenging and safe enough to experience and learn together.

• Making clear commitments up front about how conflicts are handled can help.

• Build In the sharing of experiences (writing, telling stories etc.)• Do systemic or futures work to help people see the whole

picture.

Ingredient: management of competition issues

• Remember collaboration is a new way of working; it can feel unfamiliar. When people get insecure they can fall back on the law.

• Understand EU competition law, the legal boundaries in which you need to work to navigate the risks of collaborating. It’s worth having a lawyer check through what you’re doing to be sure you’re working within legal boundaries.

Ingredient: senior level commitment

• Ensure top level management is engaged throughout the process, particularly those who hold the budget, to maintain commitment in partner organisations.

• Make public demonstration of commitment (such as formal endorsements). . This is hugely significant and represents movement within the system.

• Know how and when to communicate and influence different levels both internally and externally.

• Have a strong senior level spokesperson for the convenor – someone to talk to the boards, deal with high-level conflicts with the other senior Steering Group members, build the C-suite relationships, etc.

Ingredient: credible, experienced facilitation

• Good facilitation, including background trouble-shooting, can make or break the process. It needs an experienced facilitator of senior standing who understands how the partners think and has the skills to help the group through some tough conversations.

• Trust in the facilitator builds trust in the process.• It’s important to differentiate between their

facilitator and NGO roles so everyone is clear which “hat” the facilitator is wearing at any given time.

Ingredients: external communications• Reach out as you go along. Set up a website, put out press

releases; communicate widely. This attracts new partners, gets others interested faster, can get you invited to speak at conferences where you can attract other partners, etc. Comms can be a binding mechanism that holds things together.

• Use communications to celebrate milestones, endorse messages from senior managers, to enhance the reputation of the whole project. Communications need to reflect the language of the industry and be designed to convince senior level people, particularly those who hold the budget.

• Use comms to demonstrate commitment: Launch report or key stages in public forum. Ideal if hosted by one of partners so they have an investment in doing it well.

Magicingredient

Ingredient: external communications (2)• Having a comms person throughout the process,

thinking about how comms could be used strategically at every point, managing the building and maintenance of the website and twitter accounts, and generally thinking about the comms angle at all times was enormously useful. It is necessary for any project seeking to build a coalition, and keep a wide range of stakeholders informed and involved.

• Comms is also expensive. Do not underestimate the cost of doing comms effectively, particularly if it is a cornerstone of your strategy. Build in development and maintenance time.

Ingredient: project management +

• high-profile, multi-stakeholder projects need project management and admin to be a well-oiled machine. Good project management keeps things moving, supports group forming and confidence in the project. With multi-stakeholder projects, any information – good or bad – will be internalized by multiple parties who, odds are, talk to each other.

• You effectively need a senior-level coalition builder who will act as the binding glue between the stakeholders and manage the relationships, in addition to stellar admin support. You cannot afford to be sloppy or under-resource this – there is too much at stake.

Ingredient: project management + (2)• Project management is key to all stages, but

especially workstreams. Workstreams require a shift from “thinkers” to “do-ers”; they need the structure and support to get through challenging periods / when there are no “quick wins”. A project manager can get people through times when they are hitting barriers and floundering.

• Budget adequately for relationship and project management time at 20 -30% of overall budget. Do not underestimate the costs of these, both for development and ongoing maintenance.

Ingredient: time & capacity to nurture relationships• Communications & relationship management need plenty of

time and resource. This can be difficult to budget for and quantify. It requires great management and people skills.

• Understand that managing the project will need significant time to communicate with everyone involved and look after relationships. Put project and relationship management in at about 30% of the total budget.

• At the end of the day, the success of the process can have less to do with getting the content right, and much more to do with getting the right players on side, side-stepping and defusing the tensions within the industry effectively, getting high-powered champions to speak on your behalf and so on. Change can be political, and relies on relationships – both inside and outside the group.