Foster collective leadership within and between organizations
One thing has become clear from efforts to make headway on complex challenges: It isn’t possible without collective leadership within and between various stakeholder groups. Collective leadership means that everyone involved assumes shared responsibility for working together toward a common vision.
According to Peter Senge, Hal Hamilton, and John Kania, in their article “The Dawn of System Leadership,” to foster collective leadership, you must:
- Help people see the larger system in order to build shared understanding of the problem. “This understanding enables collaborating organizations to jointly develop solutions not evident to any of them individually and to work together for the health of the whole system rather than just pursue symptomatic fixes to individual pieces.”
- Foster reflection and generative conversations. “Reflection means thinking about our thinking, holding up the mirror to see the taken-for-granted assumptions we carry into any conversation and appreciating how our mental models may limit us…. This is an essential gateway for building trust where distrust had prevailed and for fostering collective creativity.”
- Shift the collective focus from reactive problem solving to co-creating the future. “Change often starts with conditions that are undesirable, but artful system leaders help people move beyond just reacting to these problems to building positive visions for the future. This shift involves not just building inspiring visions but facing difficult truths about the present reality and learning how to use the tension between vision and reality to inspire truly new approaches.”
Far from being prescriptive, these three areas of focus provide you and your partners a wide range of options for building new capacities together.
Send us your recommendations for practices and tools.
Sensing Journeys
As defined by the Presencing Institute, “Sensing Journeys pull participants out of their daily routine and allow them to experience the organization, challenge, or system through the lens of different stakeholders. Sensing journeys bring participants to places, people, and experiences that are most relevant for the respective question they are working on.”
Sensing Journeys
Stretch Collaboration
In his book Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust, author and director of Reos Partners Adam Kahane introduces the idea of “stretch collaboration.” He argues that, when we’re working with others on complex problems, we may not be in agreement all the time. Rather than exerting effort on trying to instill harmony, according to Kahane, we should focus on embracing conflict and connection, experimenting our way forward, and stepping into the game by being willing to change ourselves.
Stretch Collaboration
Creative Tension
Musician and author Robert Fritz’s concept of “structural tension,” also known as “creative tension,” is a valuable tool for moving toward your desired outcome. By being clear about your shared vision—where you want to go together—and keenly aware of your current reality—where you are now—you create a sense of tension that needs resolution. You then formulate an action plan for moving toward your vision in order to bridge this gap. This technique is based on the creative process, which Fritz views as “history’s most successful process for accomplishment.”
Creative Tension
To Resolve New Year’s Resolutions by Robert Fritz