Tornadoes of Opportunity & Whirlpools of Despair
Two powerful vortexes make supporting collective efforts – such as serving as a backbone for a collective impact initiative – messy, difficult work. The appropriate skills can help those working in the “messy middle” keep a safe distance from those swirling forces and help the members of the collaborative move forward together.
Cross-sector collective efforts – including those that use the collective impact framework – involve multiple, diverse members interacting with each other to tackle wicked, persistent problems in their community. The combination of the complexity of the challenge and diversity of players interacting generates tensions, pressures and movement that regularly result in tornadoes of opportunity and whirlpools of despair.
The tornado of opportunity forms quickly after the launch of a collective effort to address a community priority, whether it be a housing security, early childhood education or economic development. The forces that start the tornado spinning include pent-up demand for someone to “take charge.” One of the responsibilities of the backbone of a collective effort is to develop an understanding of what’s happening, what could happen and what should happen. The more the backbone team learns, the more opportunities appear. In a well-meaning effort to “add value,” the team begins to say yes to these opportunities.
However, there’s no way a small backbone staff can “solve” the challenge at the heart of the collective impact effort. (Indeed, if a single organization could do so there’d be no need for a collective effort.) The tornado never stops spinning, there’s always more opportunity to “help.” But the backbone’s role isn’t to create solutions. Rather, backbone staff need to stay focused on helping the members of the collective effort to co-create solutions. The backbone staff’s primary role is to build understanding and relationships so that, together, the community can deal with the tornado of opportunity. “Understanding context” is a critical skill for sorting through the chaos of the tornado. If the community is going to get closer to the root causes of the wicked problem, backbone staff need to observe the patterns, interactions and relationships that are contributing to it. And they need to understand the distinct priorities, motivations and constraints of the diverse members of the collective efforts. Only when those contextual elements are well understood can the backbone staff begin to disrupt them in ways that will catalyze enduring, positive change.
While the tornado of opportunity will keep backbone staff very busy, the other vortex whirling through the messy middle – the whirlpool of despair -- can suck the energy right out of the team. This whirlpool picks up speed as the members of the collective effort struggle with the challenges of making decisions together and altering entrenched beliefs and behaviors. It’s not uncommon for even the most enthusiastic member of a collective impact effort to “snap back” into old practices of turf protection and credit taking. When this happens tensions rise and players back away from the work. More of the burden to keep the effort moving forward falls on the backbone staff. The burdened backbone staff start complaining about rather than supporting members. Members point out the backbone’s shortcomings to funders and policymakers. If the whirlpool continues to swirl, eventually it will suck the entire collective effort into its vortex.
All collaboratives lose traction at some point and, invariably, the whirlpool will start spinning faster. How much faster depends on the number of trusted relationships the backbone has built. Building trust is the best antidote to the whirlpool of despair. For example, a health care collaborative was beginning to lose some traction after a few key organizations started to drop away because of transitions in leadership and other factors. Losing the support of key members put more of a burden on the backbone staff, but they weren’t carrying the burden alone. Other strong supporters of the collaborative committed to step forward and assume more responsibility. Another member committed to meeting with one of the new leaders of a former member to get that entity back to the collective impact table. Without those trusted relationships the whirlpool would have spun out of control.
Collaborations move at the speed of trust. While building trust isn’t as visible as improved health outcomes. It can and should be measured. Backbone staff should be evaluated based on how well they are trusted and how they help build trusted relationships among the members. When trusted and valued by the members of a collective effort, the backbone staff are less likely to fall into the whirlpool of despair.
The whirlpool of despair and the tornado of opportunity are normal, inherent characteristics of collective work. By understanding context and using that understanding to build strong, trusted relationships with and among members of the collective impact effort the backbone can limit their destructive power and help the collaborative move forward.
