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Decisionmaking processes. The group’s approach to decisionmaking,
too, requires a balance between efficiency and involvement. Regardless
of who’s leading the collaborative, all participants need to
have a voice in the group’s major decisions. Guides to collaborative
work consistently recommend a process of shared, or consensus, decisionmaking.
Consensus decisionmaking is "ideal for partnerships because
the process requires thorough discussion of alternatives, allows
all voices to be heard, and fosters commitment" (U.S. Department
of Education, 1996, p. 19). However, consensus decisionmaking can
be time consuming, and it also requires some skill in focusing the
discussion, assuring full participation, identifying alternatives,
and suggesting compromises. SEDL’s collaborative process, among
others, offers tools and training to help groups and their leaders
become skilled in using consensus approaches.
For efficiency’s sake, the collaborative probably will want
to empower a subset of the group to make some decisions, but these
should be logistical, rather than substantive, decisions. Once the
larger group has decided to organize a community cleanup, for example,
a subcommittee might identify possible dates, make decisions about
publicizing the event, and make arrangements for recruiting volunteers.
Whether and how to use an outside facilitator. An outside
facilitator is by no means a requirement for a collaborative to
work well. For some communities, however, a facilitator – a
consultant from a nearby university, an educational service center
representative, or a supporting agency such as SEDL – can help
to fill gaps in energy or expertise. SEDL staff members have identified
three major advantages to having an outside person facilitate group
meetings:
- to help group members get comfortable with the partnership’s
diversity,
- to help diffuse divergent viewpoints and sometimes
highly charged emotions, and
- to help the group maneuver through the complexities
of project planning and development (Molloy et al., 1995, p. 4).
As a general rule of thumb one guide suggests that, "if there
is little or no history of broad-based collaboration in the community,
or if there is polarization or lack of trust among those who should
be involved," a facilitator may be needed (Samuels, Ahsan,
& Garcia, 1995, p. 10).
Handling communication and conflict. Nothing is more important
to a collaborative’s success than the ways its members communicate.
There are several dimensions to effective communication within a
group: sharing all relevant information with all members, maintaining
frequent contact, and using effective communication styles –
in other words, concerns about what’s said, to whom, how often,
and in what ways.
Making sure everyone understands each other is a basic concern.
This may seem obvious in groups where some members speak predominantly
English and others speak predominantly Spanish or another language.
Several SEDL-sponsored sites, for example, now conduct their meetings
in both Spanish and English. But even in groups where everyone speaks
a common language, it takes work to reach clear understandings.
In one three-year case study, for example, researchers found that
members of a partnership group "used the same words but attached
different meanings to them." These researchers conclude that,
"without paying careful attention to meaning, people might
be too quick to agree. . . and not realize the implications of their
differences until they begin to act" (Corbett, Wilson, &
Webb, 1996, p. 45). School staffs and other agency representatives,
in particular, need to be careful of using terms and labels that
carry specific assumptions within the profession, but may mean something
else – or may seem meaningless – to lay persons.
Much of the concern about communication has to do with ways of
coping with conflict. Collaborative groups tend to suffer from one
of two extremes: disagreements that are so emotionally charged it
becomes difficult to move beyond personal anger to practical agreement,
or such careful avoidance of disagreement that the group is never
able to tackle the difficult issues that must precede effective
action. Groups need "a communication process that gives [participants]
permission to disagree and uses conflict and its resolution as a
constructive means of moving forward" (Melaville & Blank,
1991, p. 37). SEDL and other resources offer strategies and training
activities for encouraging open, constructive communication.
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