Effective collaborations depend on diverse stakeholders sharing power and responsibility so they can make decisions and act together. Chris helps design the governance and support structures that enable partners to co-create and implement solutions together. Chris also helps the partners identify, hire and train the staff required to support their collaborative.
Coaching & Professional Development
Working in the “messy middle” of supporting a collective effort is much different than working within an organization. Chris provides coaching and professional development support to individuals responsible for coordinating and facilitating collaboratives, including backbone staff supporting collective impact efforts. Using proven tools and tactics, Chris helps his clients strengthen five key skills for exercising collaborative leadership. His coaching helps his clients navigate the tensions and traps inherent in all collective efforts and remove the obstacles and barriers so the members of the collaborative can move forward together. In addition to one-to-one coaching, Chris provides online and in-person professional development workshops for staff, boards and partners.
Evaluation & Assessment
How partners work together within a collaborative is just as important as what the partners work on together. Chris uses a variety of tools, including interviews and surveys, to assess the health of ongoing collaboratives and to capture key lessons so they can be used to sustain the collaborative. Chris provides continuous evaluation services and retrospective case studies, such as this one done for a workforce funders collaborative in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.