Civic collaboration is a process of shared decision-making in which all the parties with a stake in a problem constructively explore their differences and develop a joint strategy for action. The ethic of collaboration is premised on the belief that politics does not have to be a zero-sum game where one party wins and one party loses, or where both sides settle for a compromise. If the right people are brought together in constructive ways and with the appropriate information they can not only create authentic visions and strategies for addressing their joint problems but also, in many cases, overcome their limited perspectives of what is possible.

This essay was part of a background study commissioned by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change in 1995. The report is available as a print-friendly PDF version courtesy of the leadership program Santa Fe Future. It's also available in a French Translation prepared by Jean-Pierre Bélanger.

In a time of widespread frustration with politics-as-usual, in which confrontation, hierarchy, and exclusion characterize our primary means of problem-solving, the principles of collaboration are seen by many organizations, communities, and civic leaders as a more effective means of working for change than forming coalitions, task forces, commissions, interest groups, and other, more traditional kinds of partnerships.

While the term collaboration (and its various offshoots — collaborative leadership, community alliances, participatory problem solving, etc.) is bandied about a great deal today as an answer to politics-as-usual, surprisingly little substantive research has been done on the subject. As two scholars at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently pointed out, "despite the attractiveness of the idea, most of the literature remains of an advocacy genre. Little research and evaluation are available, and few examples of successful large-scale multiagency collaboration have been identified."

Despite the shortage of formal research on collaboration, however, there is a growing body of literature on the subject. This paper reviews some of the principal sources in order to better understand: What is collaboration? How does it differ from other models of cooperation? What are the prerequisites and dynamics of effective collaboration? What makes an effective collaborative leader? What are some of the obstacles to successful collaboration? And how do we create more collaborative communities? The paper includes an annotated survey of some of the key works on the subject.

What is Collaboration?

As its Latin roots com and laborare suggest, collaboration reduced to its simplest definition means "to work together." The search for a more comprehensive definition leads to a myriad of possibilities each having something to offer and none being entirely satisfactory on its own. These range from the formally academic ("a process of joint decision making among key stakeholders of a problem domain about the future of that domain") to the downright esoteric ("an interactive process having a shared transmutational purpose"). The most robust definition (and the most commonly cited) seems to be found in Barbara Gray's Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems. She describes collaboration as "a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible." In Collaborative Leadership, David Chrislip and Carl Larson offer a slightly different but also useful definition: "It is a mutually beneficial relationship between two or more parties who work toward common goals by sharing responsibility, authority, and accountability for achieving results."

Collaboration holds widespread appeal to people from every position on the political spectrum, not because it offers everything to everyone (as some of the literature advocating collaboration seems to suggest), but because it deals with a process, as distinct from a program, agenda, or outcome. Collaboration prompts us to look at the very process by which we arrive at political choices, whatever those choices happen to be.

Collaboration may be appropriate under a variety of circumstances, from resolving a neighborhood or environmental dispute, to revitalizing an economically depressed area, to settling a conflict between communities, to a joint venture among businesses, to promoting greater civic participation and involvement in the well-being of a community. Collaborative endeavors generally share a number of basic characteristics:

• The problems are ill-defined, or there is disagreement about how they should be defined.
• Several stakeholders have a vested interest in the problems and are interdependent.
• These stakeholders are not necessarily identified a priori or organized in any systematic way.
• There may be a disparity of power and/or resources for dealing with the problems among the stakeholders.
• Stakeholders may have different levels of expertise and different access to information about the problems.
• The problems are often characterized by technical complexity and scientific uncertainty
• Differing perspectives on the problems often lead to adversarial relationships among the stakeholders
• Incremental or unilateral efforts to deal with the problems typically produce less than satisfactory solutions
• Existing processes for addressing the problems have proved insufficient

Collaborative endeavors take many forms. Some common varieties include: public-private partnerships, also known as social partnerships — ad hoc alliances between otherwise independent organizations which span both the public and the private sectors; future commissions, also known as search conferences, in which citizens and community leaders analyze trends, develop alternative scenarios of the future, and establish recommendations and goals for the community; interagency collaborations aimed at improving social services to children, families, and other members of a community; electronic networks designed to link various civic, educational, business, and governmental institutions within a community or region through computer networks; school- community partnerships designed to foster greater collaboration between secondary schools and key community institutions; networks and linkages — loosely structured alliances among groups, organizations, and citizens that share a commitment to a particular issue or place; and regional collaboration where local governments work together to promote economic development and service delivery.

Collaboration occurs in many spheres of human activity, of course, and is not limited to civic affairs. While the focus of this paper is on civic collaboration, it should be noted that a great deal has been written about collaboration in the fields of organizational and management theory, microeconomics, linguistics, epistemology, democratic theory, and especially education.

Collaboration vs. Other Models of Cooperation

Collaborative partnerships can be broadly grouped under two headings: those aimed at resolving conflicts and those designed to develop and advance shared visions for the future. In both cases, the process concentrates on carefully defining and, if need be, redefining the issues involved before moving on to solutions. As David Mathews writes, "We cannot even begin to agree on how we should act until we have a common definition of the problem, one that reflects an understanding of our own interests, the interests of others, and how the two diverge and converge."

Collaboration, then, involves articulating a shared purpose and direction and working toward joint decisions. This distinguishes it from other forms of cooperation which may involve common interests but are not based on a collectively articulated goal or vision. Ann Austin and Roger Baldwin note that while there are obvious similarities between cooperation and collaboration, the former involves preestablished interests while the latter involves collectively defined goals. Melaville and Blank take a similar view. In the context of interagency collaboration, they suggest that "a collaborative strategy is called for ... where the need and intent is to change fundamentally the way services are designed and delivered." By contrast, cooperation merely involves "coordinat[ing] existing services."

Banding together to work for common goals is not a new idea in politics. The literature is full of examples of how community building blocks — religious groups, unions, ethnic and civic groups, small businesses, political organizations — have formed cooperative ventures, community interest groups, neighborhood task forces, and civic coalitions. What often distinguishes these groups from collaborative alliances, however, is that they are often seen as the most effective means of advancing a predetermined political agenda. In his book CommonWealth, Harry Boyte describes these kinds of community groups as a populist response to entrenched power structures. "Through confrontation and other means," he writes, these advocacy groups or "people's organizations" often "challenge specific, visible targets in the local power structure to produce concrete, tangible results." As Robert Zdenek, president of a Chicago neighborhood association, observes: "If you're doing advocacy, it's more confrontational, more strident. If you're doing development, it's more collaborative."

David Mathews points out that because traditional forms of citizen organizations such as coalitions, advocacy groups, and advisory commissions so dominate our experiences, we are often unable to imagine the other forms civic associations can take. But, he says, there are a growing number of community organizations across the country today that are focused more on building a public agenda than advancing a specific cause, that are based on inclusiveness rather than representation, that emphasize citizens empowerment rather than the manipulation of existing power structures, that are focused on building relationships rather than "winning" or shifting the balance of power in a community. What sets these types of associations apart, Mathews explains, "is the notion that politics has more to do with the connections among a variety of problems than with certain particular problems. Associations of this kind have a broad comprehensive outlook; they see their work as continuing over the long term."

The Principles of Collaboration

What are the preconditions for effective collaboration? Most observers agree that it must be democratic and inclusive; that is, it must be free of hierarchies of any kind and it must include all parties who have a stake in the problem. As Cornelia Butler Flora et al. point out, "without community empowerment and broad participation in agenda setting, the ... decision-making process of discussion, debate, and compromise is relatively meaningless."

The case against hierarchies is best summed up by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler who note that centralized and hierarchical associations tend to be divided up into many layers and boxes. "People begin to identify with their unit — their turf. [In hierarchies] communication across units and between layers becomes difficult."

Even so, for collaboration to be successful it must be based on the commitment and/or involvement of prominent leaders in the community such as mayors, city council members, chief executive officers, and the like. In their analysis of what made collaboration successful in six case studies, Chrislip and Larson point out that the support of high-level, visible leaders "brought credibility to the effort and was an essential aspect of the success of the endeavor."

There is general agreement that collaboration must be highly inclusive to be legitimate. Robert Theobald, for instance, writes that "all the leadership of a community" must be involved, "whether participants fit traditional definitions of leaders or not." Chrislip and Larson agree, noting that all the successful collaborations they studied "involved many participants from several sectors — for example, government, business, and community groups — as opposed to few participants predominantly from one sector." The level of participation required, however, is partly a function of what type of collaboration is being sought. Clearly, some forms of collaboration — such as interagency partnerships — require only that the relevant stakeholders be included.

Barbara Gray observes that collaboration can only be meaningful if the stakeholders are interdependent. "Collaboration establishes a give and take among the stakeholders that is designed to produce solutions that none of them working independently could achieve." In this way, they all depend on each other to produce mutually beneficial solutions. It is also necessary that the parties form a temporary community, as Marvin Weisbord et al. observe, in order to prevent discussions from degenerating into "information exchange session[s]."

Several other points may be necessary to consider before embarking on a collaborative venture:

• What are the structural relationships between the parties and the possible power issues inherent in the collaborative arrangement?
• Is there a clear understanding among all the parties of the respective goals of the other participants?
• What form of leadership is required to facilitate the process?
• Does the project have some form of integrating structure, such as a cross-section of steering committees, to facilitate and coordinate decision-making and implementation?
• Will the project be more effective with a neutral, third-party mediator?
• Should the media be involved?
• Does the project have enough time, money, and staff support?

The Dynamics of Collaboration

The process of collaboration is seldom simple and straight-forward. It usually moves through several distinct phases beginning with an analysis of the situation and a diagnosis of the key issues involved, and moving on to a definition of the fundamental mission or desired outcome, a shared vision, a strategy to achieve the vision and the goals, a timetable for that strategy, and concluding with the measurement and evaluation of results.

Barbara Gray describes this as a three-phase process. The first phase, which she calls the prenegotiation or problem-setting phase, is often the most difficult. Six issues need to be addressed at this point: 1) the parties must arrive at a shared definition of the problem, including how it relates to the interdependence of the various stakeholders; 2) the parties must make a commitment to collaborate; 3) other stakeholders must be identified whose involvement may be necessary for the success of the endeavor; 4) the parties must acknowledge and accept the legitimacy of the other participants; 5) the parties must decide what type of convener or leader can bring the parties together; and 6) the parties must determine what resources are needed for the collaboration to proceed.

During the second phase, the parties identify the interests which brought them to the table, determine how they differ from the interests of others, set directions and establish shared goals. Gray calls this the direction-setting phase. It is characterized by six essential steps: 1) establishing ground rules; 2) setting the agenda; 3) organizing subgroups ("especially if the number of issues to be discussed is large or the number of stakeholders exceeds the twelve- to-fifteen-member limit for effective group functioning"); 4) undertaking a joint information search to establish and consider the essential facts of the issue involved; 5) exploring the pros and cons of various alternatives; and 6) reaching agreement and settling for a course of action.

The final step of the collaborative process is the implementation phase during which 1) participating groups or organizations deal with their constituencies; 2) parties garner the support of those who will be charged with implementing the agreement; 3) structures for implementation are established; and finally 4) the agreement is monitored and compliance is ensured.

Collaborative ventures obviously vary a great deal and not all of them can or want to follow this general framework. Much will depend on the nature of the endeavor, the number of people or parties involved, the time-frame, and the resources at hand.

There are differing opinions about what role consensus plays in the process of collaboration. Some argue that it is a process which does not necessarily lead to agreement on all issues. Rather, as one report put it, a "culture of collaboration" evolves during a project in which participants come to accept differences and "constantly redefine the terms of their agreements in order to reflect their growing understanding of mutual interests and goals." Barbara Gray acknowledges that not all collaborations lead to consensus, but adds that when agreements for action are reached they are always done so by consensus. "Consensus is achieved when each of the stakeholders agrees that they can live with a proposed solution, even though it may not be their most preferred solution."

Collaborative Leadership

Robert Theobald has suggested that "any useful understanding of networks and linkages must be placed within the context of changing authority structures." That is to say, the growing interest in collaboration can be seen as part of "a bumpy transition" away from "top-down power structures" toward a new way of coordinating activities and making decisions. In this context, such traditional leadership qualities as power, charisma, persuasiveness, the ability to take unilateral action, etc., may be not only inappropriate but damaging to the process.

Collaboration is a process in which the group as a whole must be self- governing and in which all participants are equally represented in the making of joint decisions. An effective leader must guide and coordinate that decision-making process. "The power of position is of little help in this world of peers," Chrislip and Larson observe, "nor are the traditional hierarchical, political, and confrontational models of leadership. Those who lead collaborative efforts ... rely on both a new vision of leadership and new skills and behaviors to help communities and organizations realize their visions, solve problems, and get results."

This new form of leadership has been variously defined as transformative, facilitative, or "servant" leadership. In his seminal work on the subject, James MacGregor Burns describes transforming leadership as a process by which "one or more persons engage with each other in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality." The key to this type of leadership, he says, is the discovery of shared purpose and the interplay between motives and values. James Svara, in his book Facilitative Leadership in Local Government, observes that collaborative leaders "stress empathetic communication, think in 'win- win' terms rather than seeing their interests in conflict with those of others, and use synergism to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts." Robert Theobald illustrates "servant" leadership with a quote from Lao-tzu: "When the leader leads well, the people say they did it themselves."

Some of the essential qualities of collaborative leadership are summed up by Richard Wellins and his colleagues in their book, Empowered Teams:

• Ability to learn
• Business planning
• Communication (oral and written)
• Delegation of authority and responsibility
• Developing organizational talent
• Follow-up
• Identification of problems
• Individual leadership (influence)
• Information monitoring
• Initiative
• Judgment
• Maximizing performance
• Motivation to empower others
• Operational planning
• Rapport building

In his classic 1951 work Group Leadership and Democratic Action, Franklyn Haiman discusses a number of fundamental principles at the heart of collaborative leadership. He notes, for instance, that the only circumstances people fully understand are those that they have experienced themselves, and the only ideas they fully grasp are those which they have participated in formulating. By extension, decisions which are a product of the group's own efforts elicit more solid and enduring support than the edicts of a single person or a select few. Furthermore, collaborative leadership builds a group that will not fall apart if something happens to the leader. Haiman also points out, and this point deserves emphasis, that "there is no particular virtue in [group] unity unless it has been achieved through diversity and is constantly subject to the ever-changing pressures of individual differences."

David Straus, one of the pioneers in the field of collaboration, outlines a number of steps toward what he calls "visionary leadership": 1) share an inspiring vision; 2) focus on results, process, and relationship; 3) seek maximum appropriate involvement; 4) model behaviors that facilitate collaboration; 5) design pathways to action; 6) bring out the best in others; and 7) celebrate achievement.

A collaborative leader is thus a person who assumes the role of discussion leader, not executive. It is a person who puts aside whatever authority, expertise, position, and influence he or she may have in the outside world in order to foster discussion and deliberation among the members of the group. In short, "the leadership role is to convene, energize, facilitate, and sustain the process."

The Limitations of Collaboration

There may be circumstances under which collaboration is not the best course of action. To determine whether or not it is appropriate to initiate a collaborative venture, it is necessary for all parties to fully understand the limitations of the process:

• Collaboration is a notoriously time-consuming process and is not suitable for problems that require quick and decisive action.
• Power inequalities among the parties can derail the process.
• The norms of consensus and joint decision-making sometimes require that the common good take precedence over the interests of a few.
• Collaboration works best in small groups and often breaks down in groups that are too large.
• Collaboration is meaningless without the power to implement final decisions.

The literature is full of examples of poorly executed collaborations that failed to yield substantive results, ran out of funding, failed to garner enough interest or support from the leadership of the community, or stalled because of irreconcilable differences between stakeholders. As Barbara Gray notes, "Many well-intentioned efforts to involve the public in government decisions, for example, are exercises in frustration and often exacerbate rather than improve the situation because careful attention to the process of managing differences is neglected."

Some of the circumstances under which it is best not to collaborate include: 1) when one party has unchallenged power to influence the final outcome; 2) when the conflict is rooted in deep-seated ideological differences; 3) when power is unevenly distributed; 4) when constitutional issues are involved or legal precedents are sought; and when a legitimate convener cannot be found.

Building Collaborative Communities

In his much-discussed article "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Robert Putnam observes that membership in associations — from labor unions and women's groups to sports leagues and parent-teacher associations — has been on a steady decline over the last decade or two. This trend, he says, is especially troublesome in the light of Tocqueville's observations in the 19th century about Americans' great affinity for associations. The trend is also disquieting on economic and political grounds: not only do networks of relationships of trust promote the growth and development of the economy in a given region, they also allow issues to be discussed more rationally than is possible when politics is conducted primarily though large, impersonal intermediaries such as national membership organizations and the mass media.

Putnam uses the term "social capital" to describe the networks and norms of trust and reciprocity that promote civic cooperation. One of the most pressing questions for the future, he contends, is how to reverse America's declining social capital and restore civic engagement and trust. The value of Putnam's concept of social capital is that it calls attention to the essential social role of strong relations among citizens. These relations are the foundation for all organized collective effort, including collaborative endeavors of all kinds.

As Putnam and others point out, building collaborative communities must begin by fostering social capital. In practice, that may mean strengthening what Ray Oldenburg, in The Great Good Place, calls "third places" — the core settings of informal public life such as taverns, libraries, cafes, and community centers that provide a relaxed forum for citizens to interact and discuss issues of common concern. By providing venues for the formation of social relations based on reciprocity and trust, communities can begin to create a civic infrastructure that lends itself to collaboration.

Scott Fosler and Renee Berger, in their study of public-private partnerships, note that "civic foundations" are critical to the development of partnerships and collaborations. By civic foundations, they mean:

• A positive civic culture that encourages citizen participation rooted in a practical concern for the community as a whole.
• A realistic and commonly accepted vision of the community that takes into account strengths and weaknesses in identifying what the community can and should become.
• Effective building-block civic organizations that blend the self- interest of their members with the broader interest of the community and translate that dual interest into effective action.
• A network among the key groups that encourages communication among leaders of every important segment and facilitates the mediation of differences among competing interests.
• The inclination to nurture civic entrepreneurs — that is, leaders whose knowledge, imagination, and energy are directed toward enterprises that will benefit the community, whether in the public sector, the private sector, or both.
• Continuity in policy, including the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, which minimizes uncertainty and fosters confidence in individual and group enterprises.

Creating an environment that is conducive to collaboration may also involve restructuring traditional citizen-government ties. One way to do this is to develop working relationships between citizens and government officials that are mutually advantageous. Harry Boyte tells the story of when the leaders of BUILD, a local community organization in Baltimore, first met with their senator Paul Sarbanes. As the group walked into his office, he smiled and asked them what he could do for them. "Nothing," they said simply, "we're here to get to know you. We want to know why you're here, what are your interests and concerns. We think that will help us develop a working relationship over time."

Another step may be to create a credible, open forum for collaborative ventures to develop. In an period of pervasive cynicism and suspicion of politics and government, many citizens and civic groups need to be assured of the legitimacy of working relationships. As Chrislip and Larson point out,

If it is a credible process (that is, it has both integrity and a fair chance of producing results) and an open process (that is, the dialogue is both honest and receptive to different points of view), then people will invest the energy — the enormous expenditure of energy necessary to make collaboration succeed. Creating and nurturing this open and credible process is extraordinarily important for those who are initiating collaboration.

In Discovering Common Ground, Marvin Weisbord and his colleagues offer a set of very detailed design criteria "toward the collaborative community" that involves the following eight steps: 1) involve community leaders from a wide range of "functional sectors" — public safety, recreation, social welfare, mass media, art and culture, politics, businesses, and the religious community; 2) recruit, motivate, and mobilize a diverse groups of people, including the young, middle-aged, and elderly, minorities, and the handicapped; 3) "develop new ways for the polarized, distrustful segments of the community to be included"; 4) demonstrate the value of differences of traditions, ideas, beliefs, needs, and expectations as a resource; 5) foster civic entrepreneurship — that is, the skills needed to develop collaborative networks and support their effective functioning; 6) increase the awareness, sensitivity, and skills of professionals, volunteers, leaders, and members to allow them to bring in other members of the community; 7) develop procedures for linking ad hoc initiators and groups into the ongoing structures of the community; and 8) develop effective follow-up strategies on goals, intentions, and plans discussed during the initial stages of collaboration.

Building collaborative communities thus involves a wide range of activities, from fostering social capital and creating free spaces for citizens to come together naturally, to bringing groups, organizations, and citizens together for constructive dialogues.

As David Mathews has said, "all fundamental political problems are problems of relationships; therefore, all fundamental solutions have to involve fundamental changes in relationships." The promise of collaboration is not only that it helps us redefine our relationships with each other, but that it helps us create, in Marvin Weisbord's words, "a joint relationship to the wider world."

This literature review was part of a background study commissioned by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change in 1995.