Granting & Earning Generous Authority
An inherent challenge in civic collaboration is that no one is in charge. When diverse, independent players come together to work on a shared purpose they do so because they value that purpose, not because someone ordered them to the table.
Once the players have individually decided to be at the table, then they start to make decisions together. Among the first decisions is how to decide how to decide. If the players cannot make decisions together over the long-term, their collaborative will be short-live.
If the purpose of the civic collaborative is ambitious – such as collectively reducing infant mortality or preventing homelessness – it is likely that the players will decide early on that they need someone (an outside consultant or dedicated staff) to facilitate, coordinate and support their meetings and other work related to their shared purpose. I refer to this as “collaboration capacity.” In the collective impact framework, it is referred to as the backbone. Whatever title that person (or persons) is given, they must still wrestle with the inherent challenge: they aren’t in charge. They have been given a specific role to play to support the collective; they do not have the power to order anyone else around.
Individuals in this collaborative support role try to find firm ground somewhere between the extremes of allowing the independent players to behave as they wish and trying to deny their independence. Such firm ground can be found if the players grant the facilitator “generous authority” and if the facilitator continues to earn such authority over time.
Priya Parker, in her wonderful book The Art of Gathering, introduces the concept of generous authority and describes it as the power granted by those convened to the convener. “A gathering run on generous authority is run with a strong, confident hand, but it is run selflessly, for the sake of the others,” she writes.
The players should be explicit in their granting of “generous authority” to the facilitator(s) of the collaborative. The facilitator is being asked by the players to help them to move forward together. To do that, the facilitator should have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. And the players need to be clear on how they will behave with each other and with the facilitator.
The players need to hold themselves and each other accountable for granting generous authority to the facilitator.
Granting generous authority is an unusual act of sharing power. And power shared is collaboration, as Jack Ricchiuto says in his book, Reimagining Community.
Most civic collaboratives have powerful organizational players at the table. For example, I was asked by a mayor, a county executive, the chair of a chamber of commerce and the president of a prominent foundation to help them organize a collective effort to address economic priorities. As a consultant, I had no authority (and very little influence) over any of the powerful people at the table. Each leader was accustomed to – indeed, expected to – run meetings and make numerous, unilateral decisions on critical matters several times a day. But during the few hours a week they sat together with me, they had to give up control of the meeting and make decisions together. Thankfully, they had given me clear parameters of what they wanted to accomplish and what they expected from me.
I’ve coached facilitators who do not have a clear idea of their authority to help the group move forward together. They often struggle to use a “strong, confident hand” to facilitate meetings and accelerate decision making. They’ve been reminded many times by the partners that they have no power over them, and they default to more of an administrative assistant role than a facilitator. Such collaboratives usually fail to gain traction.
In contrast, the leaders that granted me generous authority quickly transitioned from planning together to acting together. And as they made that shift, each of those powerful leaders (as well as few players who were added to the table) had to sustain their ability to share power and grant generous authority.
Once granted generous authority, the facilitator of a collective effort needs to foster outcomes that are generous, that are for the players at the table. If the facilitator demonstrates their purpose is to serve the players at the table, it is likely that the players will continue to grant generous authority.
But facilitation is an unusual and misunderstood role and it is not uncommon for the facilitator of a collaborative to try to exercise too much control. One reason this happens is we’re all trained in organizational behavior. From first grade on we have many experiences with an organizational chart and we learn the norms of behavior that flow from such structures. Sometimes the facilitator is given an “organizational title,” such as “president” or “director.” And people with such titles are expected to preside over or direct others, not serve others. Years ago, I was asked to assess a public health-related collaborative that was facilitated by a dynamic organizational leader. In addition to leading an organization, she was tasked with facilitating a collaborative that included hospitals, governments, a United Way and her own organization.
Members of the collaborative shared with me during confidential interviews that from their perspective the effort was controlled by the facilitator’s organization and its outcomes were attributed to that organization, not the collaborative or any of the other partners. From their perspective, the facilitator was not being generous and therefore had lost the authority to help the group move forward together.
Sustaining generous authority requires the facilitator (regardless of their title) to remember and fulfill Priya Parker’s advice: “Generous authority is not a pose. It’s not the appearance of power. It is using power to achieve outcomes that are generous, that are for others.”
To learn how to use that power in generous ways, I encourage you to read Facilitating Breakthrough by Adam Kahane, which provides five fundamental questions that facilitators help the members of a collaborative ask and explore as they move forward together.
