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Late afternoon prep, and stuff's flowing over here. Through this project, which hangs on a series of workshops spread over nearly two years, I'm helping an organization create a multi-stakeholder collaborative group.
I've guided other leaders to build multi-stakeholder teams that are still working together years later, and while they're all different, I see some throughlines:
🧗 It takes a courageous leader who's willing to take the rope and climb into the unknown, in constantly changing conditions. And you can't do that without a trustworthy team—which is something you cultivate.
💫 You'll need vision, confidence, humility, doubt, adaptability and self-awareness. Sometimes all at once.
🤝 Inviting different perspectives—and then listening to them with the intention to really understand—is both hard and incredibly useful. This is a practice.
🌄 You've gotta take the time to pause and look back at how far you've come, check where you are now, and notice if anything is emerging.
🥗 The journey will change you and bond you as a team.
🧘 Insight, learning and change are only impactful if you see them.
With differing missions, philosophies and to-dos, it can be hard for orgs to set aside resources and energy to collaborate across boundaries. Watching these leaders focus even more intently on it has given me such heart.
Perhaps my client said it best while we were planning this session:
"We're staying committed to this because we know our partnerships are even more important now than when we last met with the group in December."
