Leading by Convening: The Power of Authentic Engagement 1
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Leading by Convening:The Power of Authentic Engagement
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• Can state agencies create sustainable changes without authentic engagement of diverse stakeholders, including the families who are their intended beneficiaries & the family organizations who support them?
• Can stakeholders create sustainable changes without the participation of the people in authority?
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• The most valuable allies, or the most powerful opponents, of systems improvement.
• Stakeholders at the table changes the dynamic from us vs. them to us vs. the problem.
• Creating stakeholders as allies requires trust, time, reciprocity, and engagement … from the beginning!
Stakeholders
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Challenges
• Policy alone cannot change practice.
• Differing motivations of key players (state policymakers, implementers, family organizations, & families).
• Leaders believe they are already engaging stakeholders. Stakeholders are often dissatisfied with the opportunities for engagement (including the extent of and/or depth).
• It’s difficult to address system deficits while also mobilizing widespread support.
• Capacity building usually focuses solely on technical skills.
• There will never be enough direct technical assistance to change practices system-wide.
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Grounding Assumptions for Stakeholder Engagement
IDEA Partnership@NASDSE 2016
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Choose the image
that resonates with
you
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What is your relationship with/as stakeholders?
Stakeholder Management
Stakeholder Engagement
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Stakeholder Management
Stakeholder Engagement
Control Involvement
– Share information
– Request feedback
– Invite select group
Open Involvement
– Involve multiple stakeholders
– Share leadership
– Build consensus
– Work together
vs.
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Leading by Convening:A Theory of Action
There are both informational and attitudinal barriers to important practice changes.
• Decision makers often lead change through technical strategies such as information, training, and authority.
• Stakeholders impact the extent of change by exercising adaptive strategies (such as using their influence with other stakeholders, positively or negatively).
Practice change requires both technical information and human approaches.
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Technical challengeRequires information, knowledge, or tools
Adaptive (Relationship) challengeRequires understanding and a willingness to make behavior changes
Source: Heifetz and Linsky, Leadership on the Line, 2002
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Learning that technical solutions are necessary but often not sufficient
Knowing when a persistent problem needs an adaptive (relationship) solution
Building adaptive (relationship) skills as a part of strategy
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Leading by Convening means we…
• Bring people & organizations together to support improving child and family outcomes.
• Convene the stakeholders to discover why this is important and how it will improve practice.
• Meet people ‘where they are’ on the issue.
• Translate complex challenges into ways that stakeholders can contribute.
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• Help people ‘lead in place’ regardless of role, position, or title.
• Create new knowledge together.
• Solve complex issues that need the various perspectives to find solutions.
• Build a personal commitment to working in this way because we believe inclusive work is better and more sustainable work.
Leading by Convening means we…
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Deepening Levels of Engagement
Shallow engagement
Structured participation
Authentic engagement
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Convening is…
Morethan a meeting
More than facilitation
The beginning of a relationship
focused on practice change
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Leadership within Leading by Convening
• Everyone can be a leader.
• Bring groups with authority and groups with influence together.
• Develop relationships to transform the work and improve outcomes.
The Partnership Way
OperationalAdaptive
Leading by Convening
Networking Collaborating Transforming
Depth of Interaction
Informing
Elements of Interaction
Ensuring Relevant
Participation
Doing the Work
Together
Coalescing around
Issues
Habits of Interaction
Technical
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Leading by Convening
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Leading by Convening Framework
Behavior changes on the part of both leaders and
stakeholders
Contributing factors in making a behavior change
How effectively we integrate new habits into
personal practice
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Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Adaptive Technical Operational
Networking Collaborating TransformingInforming
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Habits of Interaction
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Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Adaptive Technical Operational
Networking Collaborating TransformingInforming
Adaptive Technical Operational
Elements of Interaction
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Informing Networking Collaborating
Depth of Interaction
Transforming
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Adaptive Technical Operational
Networking Collaborating TransformingInforming
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Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Adaptive Technical Operational
Networking Collaborating TransformingInforming
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Habits of Interaction
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Developing habits of interaction:
– Coalescing around issues
– Ensuring relevant participation
– Doing work together
Engagement at the heart of the solution
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Habit of Practice:Coalescing around issues
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Different Perspectives
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Why do people come together around an issue?
CommonalityCommonality of NEED
Commonality of Purpose
Commonality of Action
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Starting to Coalesce Around the Issues
• Complex
• Interconnected
• Appear different
• Boundary crossing
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Let’s Look at the Tools for Coalescing
• Four Simple Questions
• How People Are
• Meet the Stakeholders
• Seeds of Trust
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Coalescing around issues requires deep levels of engagement
Seeds of Trust• Strategies to effectively invite & engage
– Create an invitation that goes beyond the basics of time, place and topic. Tell people why you want to do things differently. Ask them to join you.
– Keep reaching out in different ways.– Your tone and your ability to show authentic
appreciation for the participation of others build trust. – This does not mean any one person or group can
always have their way; it does mean that each person and/or group is consistently treated with respect for their role and their views
– Respect the important role of resistors.30
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Habit of Practice:Ensuring relevant participation
• Range of participants– Power differential– Supporters & critics– Players at different levels of scale
• Frequency– Episodic or ongoing– Predictable, sufficient to build relationships– Often enough so stakeholders can assume roles
• Role– Fixed or shared leadership roles– Everyone participates as a learner
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Tools for Relevant Participation
• What’s in It for Me?
• Engaging Everybody
• Learn the Language: Make the Connection
• Web of Connections
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Ensuring Relevant Participation
What’s in it for me?
Creating professional and personal value; moving from participants to partners
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What’s in It for Me?
Creating Professional and Personal Value
One error that we made as we began to work across groups was mistaking participation for involvement. When you are convinced of an opportunity or a course of action, it’s easy to become very focused on convincing people of your viewpoint. In our early work we found ourselves reviewing the participant lists and feeling good that so many had come to hear our message. Soon we learned that a participant list is just that, nothing more. To engage people, we had to support and encourage interactions, exchange views, and form opinions about the personal and professional value of continuing to engage.
Habit of Practice:Doing the work together
• What work has to be done?
• Who can do it?
• Why will they want to do it?
• How do we change it from us vs. them to us vs. the problem?
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Tools for Doing Work Together
• Problems Come Bundled
• Building Engagement
• Defining Our Core
• One-Way, Two Way Learning
Doing the Work Together
Problems come bundled
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Informing Networking Collaborating
Depth of Interaction
Transforming
Habits of Interaction
Elements of Interaction
Depth of Interaction
Coalescing Around Issues
Ensuring Relevant Participation
Doing the Work Together
Adaptive Technical Operational
Networking Collaborating TransformingInforming
Depths of interaction
• Informing– Sharing or disseminating
information with others who care about the issue; top-down, one-way communication
• Networking– Asking a select group what
they think about this issue & listening to what they say; limited two-way communication
• Collaborating– Engaging a more
representative group of stakeholders who care about the issue in trying to working together around the issue to make change
• Transforming– Leading by convening,
facilitating deep cross-stakeholder engagement & leadership, sharing leadership, building consensus
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Understanding depths of interaction
• Group change– Toward a culture of collaboration
• Individual change– Toward a different identity as a collaborator
• Examples from four areas of work– Active Engagement
– Building Support through Data
– Coalescing Around Evidence-Based Practices
– Engaging Stakeholders in Evaluation
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The Importance of Reflection
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How do we understand our depth of engagement and move toward deeper
levels of engagement?
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Tools for studying engagement
• Informal reflection tools to review the history of your partnerships and the work you have done together
• More formal rubrics to measure growth in depth of engagement over time
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Documenting Your Work Together
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Measuring Depth of Engagement Over Time: Rubrics
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Check for Understanding
• In what ways might increasing – and increasing depth of – stakeholder engagement lead to improved outcomes?– More accurate identification of root causes of the
problem
– Development of a plan that is more likely to address the root causes
– Increased likelihood of implementation with fidelity on the ground
– Continued implementation even after leadership changes
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Leading by Convening:
Engagement Mapped to Systems Improvement
Data
Focus Area
Infrastructure
Theory of Action
Implement
Evidence-Based
Practices (EBP)
Evaluation Plan
Mutual agreement on data interpretation; data sets to track progress; shared commitment to action designed to create measurable change
Engage stakeholders to determine areas for improvement and focus for improvement
Leverage both state agency infrastructure and the deep and durable networks already in place in professional organizations and family groups
Leading by Convening; Technical and Adaptive Approaches to Change; CoP for Strategic Advantage
Leverage the power of trust and stakeholder connection to advance the ‘capacity with capability’* to implement evidence based practice
Agree on standards for success; share, celebrate and scale-up accomplishments; joint responsibility
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Leading by Convening: Platform for Capability and Capacity Building
• Deep and durable networks are in place among stakeholders.
• These networks easily personalize messages for understanding … not just adoption.
• These networks can mobilize stakeholders to attend and act.
• When shared interests make allies of decision makers and stakeholders, existing networks become powerful channels for knowledge dissemination, authentic engagement, and the development of new knowledge.
Your Future On-Line Learning:Leading by Convening Modules
• Module 1 – Why authentic stakeholder engagement? What is Leading by Convening: The Partnership Way?
• Module 2 – Coalescing Around the Issue(s)
• Module 3 – Ensuring Authentic Participation of Relevant Stakeholders
• Module 4 – Doing the Work Together
• Module 5 – Measuring Engagement
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ncsi.wested.org
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Additional resources and information are available
on the website:
The National Center for Systemic Improvement
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