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Tools to Strengthen Connections
Have you ever been to a meeting where you felt nothing was decided, where solutions were never discussed, or you left drained and frustrated? Yeah...us too! OCDEL recognizes the vital role collaboration plays in our complex world and has been taking steps to support local communities to design meetings where people come to agreement, solutions are proposed, and attendees leave feeling energized and refreshed.
In 2016, OCDEL offered two P-3 Networking Meetings, Strengthening Connections Across Pennsylvania, where approximately 150 school and community leaders came together to learn from each other and continue sustainability efforts by using creative collaborations and stakeholder engagement. The goals of the meeting were to:
- Understanding shifts in funding and the desire to continue the momentum and learning;
- Experiencing methods and tools to apply in regional meetings, and understanding the underlying concepts that support them;
- Adding knowledge about early learning both locally and statewide; and
- Develop plans for conducting regional meetings.
We have been excited to see and hear what teams have continued to work on in their own communities.
Leah Spangler from The Learning Lamp & Ignite Education Solutions in Johnstown shared:
I used one of the activities from the P-3 networking meeting with my staff. They really help with team building.
Desiree Rockwell, M.P.A., Nurse-Family Partnership Administrator with the Guthrie Towanda Memorial Hospital in Towanda shared the following story.
We just wanted to share with you that we used some of the strategies that we learned at the conference for the first time. At our Early Childhood Coalition meeting yesterday - we used the active idea share and the carousel with those who attended. We chose these tools because we felt that our team engagement had greatly decreased. In fact, sometimes we felt that team members were "just showing up" to meetings and not really taking on an active role.
We just wanted to share with you that the strategies we used REALLY WORKED. We had a great meeting with lots of sharing. Everyone was truly engaged and admitted to not feeling more involved previously. We had a great two hour conversation and are looking forward to meeting again.
If you weren't able to attend these meetings, there are still many great resources to help your team be more effective and support your capacity to become a more collaborative leader. In the book
Collaborative Leadership in Action (Sanagahan and Gabriel, 2014), the following five fundamentals for collaboration are offered.
- Be intentional. Great things don't happen by accident. Intentionally plan for a design meeting, using strategies that are engaging.
- Build trust. Without trust, not much else will happen. Transparent communication, fulfilling promises and commitments, and providing a way to discuss difficult topics all help to build trust in as team.
- Be inclusive. If people feel like an outsider, they won't engage. Good meetings connect with diverse learning styles, focus on engaging all participants, and help everyone feel like they belong.
- Create alignment. People are more engaged and more productive when they feel connected to the organization's vision and values. Gaining group commitment to the greater goals of the organization happens continuously through frequent and intentional meetings.
- Develop a team. Making sure all team members understand the strengths they and other members bring to the team helps increase performance.
Let's explore tips, tools, and strategies for implementing the five fundamentals!
Be Intentional
The book,
The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation (Lipmanowicz and McCandless, 2014), offers many great activities to help leaders plan for and design engaging and impactful meetings. You may find as you try some of these new meeting designs and become more collaborative, people might say things like, "This won't work here." What you are really hearing are fears - fear of the unknown, fear of letting go of control, fear of doing it wrong. Fortunately, such fears dissipate quickly since more engaging strategies invariably generate much more satisfying and energizing interactions than participants experience with familiar conventional structures. Visit the
Liberating Structures website to get more information on how to work through the initial phases of designing new meetings.
Build Trust
The BUILD Initiative works with early childhood leaders within states and nationally to better prepare young children to thrive and succeed. BUILD supports leaders from both the private and public sectors as they work to set policy, offer services and advocate for children from birth to age five. BUILD developed The
Community Systems Development Toolkit which supports the hands-on implementation of collaborative systems work at the local level, providing resource tools that cover the full spectrum of community systems and coordination work. The toolkit offers an entire section on communication - a valuable strategy in gaining and sustaining trust on a team.
The
Communicating Across Collaboration section includes tools, strategies and examples to support the planning and implementation of communication across all levels of the collaboration and community. The communication includes both internal and external communication to engage the public in the work.
Be Inclusive
According to
Productive Workplaces
(Weisbord, 2012), as people decide whether or not to invest themselves in a group, they ask themselves these three questions.
- Am I In or Out?
- How much Power/Influence do I have?
- Will I be able to Contribute/Learn something?
Am I In or Out?
Most of us want to be valued, to have tasks that matter, and to belong. The more "in" we feel, the better we cooperate and engage. The more "out" we feel, the more we withdraw, work alone, and lose attention.
How much Power or Influence do I have?
Faced with situations we can't influence, we feel powerless, and in turn, we may lose self-efficacy. The more "elbow room" we have to shape our circumstances and learning, the more apt we are to work harder and persist.
Will I be able to Contribute or Learn something?
Tremendous skills, experience, and common sense are present in every group. Limiting assumptions about who can and should do what prevent us from engaging. When we sense that we will have an opportunity to learn or contribute, we step up.
Create Alignment
The BUILD Initiative toolkit also has the section,
Creating and Sustaining a Shared Vision. These resources will support creation and reassessment of a shared vision across community stakeholders.
The Self-Assessment/Self-Identification Tool in particular provides an opportunity to self-reflect, to encourage discussion, and to brainstorm ideas on how to further cultivate an organizational culture amenable to partnership and see where individual goals and values align with the organization.
Develop a Team
The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation (Lipmanowicz and McCandless, 2014) offers valuable tools to help teams learn more about each other's strengths. The
Liberating Structures website offers a wonderful and enlightening activity called Appreciative Interviews. In less than one hour, a group of any size can generate the list of conditions that are essential for its success. Positive movement is sparked by the search for what works now and by uncovering the root causes that make success possible. Stories of success can also offer insight into what drives team members, where their strengths lie, and how their experiences can impact the work of the team.
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