My career began in adult social care and health many moons ago, having freshly graduated from a psychology degree and looking to find my ‘calling’ career wise. Having spent several good years in the sector, I was then ‘called’ to education for several more years. Beyond that, I moved into the Civil Service then into policing and then finally, back to education again. Working across multiple sectors in the way that I have, seeing and recognising the nuances between them of course, but seeing more similarities than differences, I’ve always been plagued by the same question ‘Why is there not more cross-sector working than there is?’.
Logically, it makes complete sense to share thinking and learning, funding and resources, and to find ways to make experiences of our services more coherent for those who access them. Perhaps there are arguments against this logic but I’m yet to see any. So, if it makes logical sense to be doing it, why are we not?
There are pockets of cross-sector working happening (and from what I have seen, it achieves tremendous results when done well) but it’s nowhere near as widespread as it ought to be. Particularly given the challenges all sectors are facing around underfunding, stretched resources, increasing demands and complexity, recruitment and retention and much more.
The psychologist in me (plus my experiences over 20+ years of work) tells me that if something makes logical sense but isn’t happening, it often comes down to two things:
- It’s recognised as important but hasn’t made the priority list when weighed against other priorities and pulls on our time
- We’re unsure of how to do it – particularly in terms of how to get started, how to sustain it and what it’s going to take to make it happen
For the former, there is extensive writing and research out there that ‘makes the case’ clearly for cross-service collaboration and working, so I won’t repeat it here. That said, if you are looking to build a tailored business case for your organisation as to why it’s critical, what role your organisation can play and what issues better cross-service working can help to address, this is something I can help you with so please do get in touch.
The latter point around how to create high-quality, long lasting, cross-sector working is where I’ll focus this blog – offering some of my learning on how to convene effectively and how we create conditions for sustainability and continued engagement.
Over the course of my career, I have been deeply committed to finding ways to bring sectors and services closer together. Particularly during my recent tenure as a CEO of a national membership organisation in education and currently though my work leading Elevating Leadership and the Common Ground Collective, a large proportion of my time has been spent on facilitating cross-sector learning and building partnerships.
So, what have I learnt about what works well in effective cross-services convening and collaboration that might be useful to share? A few thoughts below…
- Authority and power are not king, finding common ground is. People are drawn less to people flexing their authority and power and more to addressing a shared area of interest and challenge together; finding this common ground is a critical starting point. One of the top things that sustains effective partnership working is a shared sense of purpose and ambition. People will be (and stay) invested in the things that really interest them and the things that help them to deliver on top priorities for their service or sector. Find that common ground, link to sector priorities, and it will help you to secure engagement.
- When bringing people together from different, diverse sectors and services, we are no longer ‘the expert’. This is a good thing as it guards against assumptions and means we must actively listen and learn. Initially, it can make us feel vulnerable to say we don’t know something either that we think we should know, or that we think others think we should know. But this lack of knowledge can be helpful with partnership working as it offers others’ a chance to share their knowledge (everyone likes to feel helpful!) and stops us inadvertently assuming we know everything we need to know.
- Curiosity-based approaches are far more effective than trying to provide too much certainty or all the answers. Partnerships or collaboration based around shared curiosity and exploration are more productive than those where we think we know it all. I’ve opened collaboration meetings before with the question ‘what are you most curious about or keen to explore?’ as it helps to draw out areas of shared intrigue and ensures the meeting allows time to question and reflect rather than spending time backing up assumptions about something.
- Facilitation of partnerships and collaboration needs to be as neutral and objective as possible to allow all thoughts. priorities and ideas to emerge without a specific sector lens dominating. This is where bringing in an external objective facilitator can be helpful or if that’s not possible, making sure that whoever the facilitator is, is able to take a sector-neutral approach. This can help to secure full engagement and the emergence of new thinking. Similarly, it can be helpful to use ‘neutral venues’ (such as town halls, community buildings etc.) for convening to further underline the sense of objectivity.
- The style and tone of the facilitator and of the group must support openness, honesty, equality of voice and the facilitator must be skilled in noticing the quieter voices. Many partnerships succeed or fail largely based on how they are facilitated. Ensuing the ‘convenor’ or ‘facilitator’ is highly attuned and experienced in harnessing diverse voices and perspectives is key. They need to be ready for managing challenges, disagreements or addressing power dynamics that others try to bring into the room. If it is a facilitator’s first time facilitating cross-sector collaboration, it can be worth them speaking with someone more experienced as part of their preparation.
- Effective collaboration focuses on the things that can be affected or influenced and acknowledges (but doesn’t become distracted by) the things outside of this. Keeping collaboration focused on where the group (and individuals) can have some influence or control will secure continued engagement. There will, inevitably, be areas beyond the group’s influence or control and these are important to acknowledge, but it’s important these areas don’t distract the group from affecting change in the areas where they do have influence. For example, in many sectors there will be mandatory reform coming in from the government that not everyone will agree with. Acknowledging their frustrations and concerns while keeping them focused on where they can have some level of influence (such as how reforms are delivered, finding avenues to feedback to the Government on their implementation etc.) will help. Rotter’s Locus of Control theory can be helpful for building thinking around this.
- Ensuring service user voice is represented keeps collaboration alive. Finding ways to bring in the various voices and viewpoints of those each partner sector serves keeps them anchored to purpose and keeping them anchored to purpose helps to sustain engagement. This may not be something for the first meeting where initial foundations are being set, but it could/should be raised for the partners to agree on ways to bring in public voice in later meetings (as early on as possible to ensure the work doesn’t move too far ahead without having service user input).
- Finally, addressing the elephant(s) in the room such as competition or relationship breakdowns. It can often be the case that we need to convene people who have a long history of competition or who, for whatever reason, just haven’t been able to work positively together. Addressing these elements at the outset can be important in ensuring individuals seek to put aside such differences and choose to focus on areas of common ground. This links to the importance of setting some ‘Terms of Reference’ or guiding principles at the start of convening diverse partners.
To summarise, in my experience, a good approach to starting to convene partners involves as many of the following elements as possible:
- Identify a common area of interest or need and invite a diverse range of people to contribute – ideally tailoring the invite (written or verbal) to their individual, organisational and/or sector priorities to secure interest and to demonstrate hoe the work supports their priority areas
- Set some clear terms of reference around key principles that will help to guide and shape the group such as equality of voice, partnership, collaboration, shared accountability, leading with curiosity etc, alongside initial potential outcomes to be achieved through bringing this group together. Linked to this, define what governance looks like for the work – who oversees what, who is responsible for what, who will lead on what.
- Ideally, utilise an objective convenor to facilitate and secure a neutral meeting venue – this helps to guard against any unintended messages re power/influence (e.g. if the convenor is a trust CEO and the meeting is held in a trust, what message might this give?).
- Keep in mind that real, long-lasting and sustained partnership working takes time to establish so aim to make any partnership-based work a longer-term programme. The first meeting should be used to set tone and build relationships - a broad agenda is fine but leave room for relationship and trust building before jumping too quickly to action/outcome focused conversation. Build on this in the meetings thereafter.
- Shared accountability is important, so giving some thought to what that might look like is helpful. For example, at my last Common Ground Collective meeting, we had everyone agree to one small commitment or action they could move forwards with after the meeting (it didn’t matter how small this was to begin with), and I followed up at an agreed point in time afterwards to ask for updates. At the next meeting, we will build on this and make the commitments a little larger – and so shared momentum develops.
- Transparency is important – providing updates and insights into what impact the partnership work is having and any barriers/challenges to address together, helps to maintain buy-in and engagement. Clarity around what level of time commitment you are asking partners to give is also key.
- Continually review the make-up of the partnership to look for any new voices that need to be brought in and any gaps in knowledge and insight – keep the partnership fluid but with a consistent core
Reflective questions
Below are some reflective questions that may help to guide your thinking/planning around cross-sector partnership working:
- Where will funding come from to secure aspects such as facilitation, organisation, venue etc and what conditions come with that funding? (logistical question to answer before anything else)
- What is the shared challenge or opportunity that we should bring people together around? (the shared purpose)
- Is it a genuine partnership gap which requires a new approach to be set up or is there already something in place you could link into? (avoiding duplication or repetition)
- Who might need to be involved? (mapping representation)
- What difference would effective collaboration make to each of the services/sectors involved and ultimately, to those they serve? (why it’s important)
- What priorities do each of the sectors/services have (I usually refer to local area plans or such like) that partnership working can contribute to the delivery of? (securing buy-in and tailoring)
- What will the partnership work together look and feel like? What can everyone expect and how will everyone have a voice? (terms of reference and setting expectations)
- How will facilitation, oversight and logistics be managed? (roles and responsibilities)
- How will engagement and participation be secured and sustained over time? (accountability, roles and responsibilities)
- How will we strike a balance between reflection, relationship building and space making vs securing tangible outcomes and actions? (balancing outcomes/certainty with curiosity/reflection)
- What legacy will this collaboration leave? (answering the question ‘what has been the point of the partnership?’)
And finally, another aspect I am often asked about is the attributes that make an individual an effective convenor or facilitator for this type of work. As ever, there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ perfect person for every type of collaboration work, but below are the top ten attributes I believe can significantly support effective collaboration and partnership to take root.
- Excellent listening skills – the ability to be able to actively listen is fundamental for convening people, particularly when it’s cross service as we can’t be expert in everything. Listening well also creates space for people to share their knowledge, expertise and ideas. Good convenors create space; they don’t take space.
- Great at synthesising complex information – due to the nature of bringing people together with plenty of knowledge and insight to share, it can feel like a lot of information is being shared in one go. Being able to synthesise and pull out key important points is important.
- Strong facilitation skills and able to take a ‘neutral’ stance – even if the convenor is from a particular sector background, they need to be able to resist the urge to bring that lens too much into the meetings. The space must feel like an equal footing for all with no particular sector having dominance.
- Systems thinker – being able to take a step back and consider how different ecosystems interact and the complexity this brings is important. This is also where leading with curiosity (‘what might be driving/causing that?’) is more effective than leading with certainty (‘I think XYZ is causing this and we must therefore do XYZ to address it’).
- Cross-sector translator – the ability to translate languages, acronyms etc (or at least keep an eye to this and challenge others to explain) between sectors is important to facilitate the growing of knowledge and understanding between sectors. Being able to bring in references to practice or policy across sectors that has commonality can also be helpful. For example, let’s say education is considering making the application process for teachers nationally consistent, policing has already done this so it’s useful to flag/bring in. Acting as a connector is important.
- Great relationship builder – building authentic and respectful relationships is a critical skill for convening. But also, being adept at connecting others and helping them to build relationships with each other is important. The best convenors build great relationships themselves but spot the opportunities to support others to build and connect too.
- Outcome-orientated – to keep diverse audiences focused and working together, convenors are skilled at leveraging data/intelligence, establishing some measurable shared outcomes, and defining clear accountability routes and clear roles and responsibilities.
- Able to handle and facilitate disagreement well – it’s inevitable when we bring diverse stakeholders together that not everyone will agree. When convening, it’s important to acknowledge disagreement (and actively welcome challenge and alternative thinking) but ensuring discussions stay respectful and constructive in nature.
- Well organised and fulfils commitments – inevitably, to bring people together (and keep them working together) there is a large degree of organisation and communication involved. Allowing plenty of notice for meetings, developing enticing invitations to secure attendance, setting out a broad agenda and ToR beforehand, taking notes on the day, and following through after the meeting takes place are just some examples of organised activities that keep the group on track and engaged. It’s critical that convenors deliver on any aspects they make commitments to – even the smallest of perceived ‘non-delivery’ can impact dynamics and engagement.
- Adept at spotting the quieter voices and inviting them in – it’s always the case that some stakeholders are louder than others but even more so in very diverse groups where there may be some background or history at play. Keeping an eye out for those who are quieter or contributing less is important in ensuring a balance of views and perspectives shared. Likewise, making sure in any invitation list, you have a good mix of stakeholders (not just the usual people or favourites) is critical.
One of the biggest potential challenges we can come across with diverse stakeholders is that some of them may have been invited to or attended a huge number of meetings previously, some of which may have had a common aim to your meeting. Sometimes we call this meeting fatigue (we’ve all felt it!).
Articulating what makes your approach different and what partners can expect to come away with that they may not have had elsewhere, is important. I also cannot emphasise enough the importance of continuity, keeping your word, and building momentum. Too many meetings nowadays start strong but dissipate over time. Truly effective partnership working takes time to establish well but sustains in the long-term because people feel that sense of buy-in, belief and support. It takes persistence, commitment and a long-term view.
In summary, it’s clear that a siloed and mono-sector approach no longer achieves what it should do for those who access services. On their own, sectors are collapsing under the weight of everything they are expected to do and this will only worsen with time. A cross-sector approach is entirely possible (particularly alongside a focus on ‘place’ and ‘locality’) and within the reach of any service willing to prioritise the work it takes to get such partnerships off the ground. The question isn’t about whether cross-sector collaboration is needed (it 100% is!), it’s about who is willing to make it happen.
If you are looking for a specialist with in-depth experience and insights to work alongside you as you develop your approach to cross-sector working and partnerships, please visit my website at: www.elevatingleadership.co.uk and www.thecommongroundcollective.co.uk or get in touch at alice@elevatingleadership.co.uk
