8 Yummy Tensions of Collective Impact
Originally posted to Living Cities’ The Catalyst on July 3, 2014. Found on the Collective Impact Forum.
I had the great fortune of attending the first learning community of the Working Cities Challenge (WCC), an initiative led by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to advance collaborative leadership and support ambitious work to improve the lives of low-income people in smaller Massachusetts cities. Passionate leaders talked through a number of challenging issues that have the potential to sow bitterness and discord in collective impact Initiatives. By addressing the conflicts and holding the tensions in balance, that bitterness can become a sweet recipe for catalyzing enduring change. Here are 8 Yummy Tensions of Collective Impact that I shared with them in my closing remarks:
1. Humility vs. Hubris – One of my favorite sayings from our Living Cities CEO Ben Hecht is that we have the “humility to know that we don’t have all the answers, but the hubris to try.” That about sums up the schizophrenia of the work of collective impact. Many committed, passionate, and intelligent people have combatted some of our country’s most pressing problems, and most of these efforts have resulted in incremental change. So who the heck do we think we are that we are going to achieve something different? There’s a danger in believing that because of collective impact we are better or smarter than those who came before us. We are not. Collective impact is just a mechanism that allows us to learn more quickly. Part of rapid learning includes being more comfortable when things we try don’t work out. And having cross-sector partners who both define and buy into the change we seek allows us the freedom to fail together with less fear of repercussions.
2. Cross-sector Engagement vs. Existence – One of the key elements of collective impact is building a cross-sector partnership. And this really ticks a whole bunch of people off because it seems like a trumped up facelift of something we’ve been all doing for years – collaboration. The folks at StriveTogether have a great visual of the difference between collaboration (i.e. coordinated impact) and collective impact. Another way to sum it up is that having an engaged cross-sector partnership is different than having one that simply exists. An engaged cross-sector partnership is comfortable having tough conversations with each other. Partners are willing to subjugate their individual interests for what will drive the ambitious change everyone has agreed to. When the initiative is facing heat, different cross-sector partners will navigate backlash on behalf of each other’s organizations, always keeping in mind the group’s or partner’s audacious goal. This is a result of investing in building the connective tissue amongst organizations so they create a shared identity. Instead of a loose consortium of organizations, they operate as one team and the enemy is not each other, but instead, whatever is preventing them from making progress toward their collective goal.
