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Written by Dianne Crampton
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Sunday, 23 March 2008 23:00 |
Can you visualize this? You are settling in for the evening and put a movie into the DVD player. You decided to make popcorn and have turned on the stove, added the oil and popcorn to the pan when the phone rings. You turn the heat down and inadvertently take the lid with you as you sprint into the adjoining room to answer the phone. It’s an important contact you have been waiting for all week. Little do you realize that turning down the heat did not stop the popcorn from reaching the popping point. The popcorn pops. You are holding the lid.
This illustrates what it is like to facilitate a group of people belonging to different organizations with no formal bond other than a common goal. Without pre-established ground rules for resolving conflict or identifying common values and boundaries, holding the “lid” is no consolation when differences begin to pop.
Strategic Alliances are formed through cooperation. The power structure is shared, and instead of a top-down communication process decisions are collaborative. To build a solid foundation, it is best to begin any collaborative process by assembling the members, creating a vision, agreeing on desired results, and building trust.
Trust building must begin early on. It is nurtured by building one-on-one relationships that rely on the integrity, honesty and fairness of the people involved. Therefore, disclosure of self-interests in relation to the common goal is extremely important. Without this, suspicions and perceptions of undue advantage can surface. jeopardizing the process.
Other important ground rules to consider include the following:
- Defining your common practices: Identifying common practices builds unified procedures resulting in shared ownership.
- Disclosing your power base: In all relationships, it is important to realize that power is always present and never equal. Disclosing the power that exists and the power that is sought from other members ensures that power is used wisely and ethically.
- Disclosing values: By identifying each member’s values, group operative values develop resulting in a foundation for making decisions and solving problems. Identifying up front those behaviors that support the majority value structure and those behaviors that would disrupt your process create the boundaries that allow your group to functioin.
- Identifying loyalties: Foundational loyalties affect the decision process. It is important to know how loyalties will affect decisions.
- Establishing a grievance process: Identify a process, put it in writing, and appoint the necessary leaders to facilitate misunderstandings and conflict. Make sure each member has a copy and is committed to the peacekeeping process.
Clear-cut ground rules as well as objectives build a favorable social and political climate where members witness cost-effective and efficient progress in exchange for their efforts.
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Dianne Crampton |
| About the author: |
| Dianne Crampton is Group Development Consultant and Leadership Coach. For the past twenty years she has helped not-for-profit leaders and their teams learn how to work well together to consistently achieve goals with high levels of group and individual satisfaction.
She is also the founder of the TIGERS group development model. The model addresses six collaborative core values necessary for creating an ethical, quality-focused and successful team culture. The values are trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success.
The TIGERS model passed a rigorous validation study through Gonzaga University and was Crampton’s dissertation for her Master’s of Arts designation in Organizational Leadership.
As president of TIGERS Success Series, Dianne has published in a business anthology endorsed by Stephen Covey and written for trade magazines. Merrill Lynch nominated her business for Inc. Magazine’s regional small business and entrepreneurial awards. Her work with Native Americans was recognized at a United Nations sponsored conference in 1994.
Dianne is also the creator and distributor of the TIGERS Team Wheel game. This game helps Board Chairs and Executive Directors identify behaviors that build collaborative groups and behaviors that cause conflict, morale problems, production failures, and misunderstandings. For more information go to http://www.corevalues.com/Game.htm | | Read More >> | |
