GUEST COLUMN.

By Lucy Ellis, Principal and Founder, The Calyx    

Coalitions are an almost mandatory reality for tackling gnarly public challenges like homelessness, transit, and crime - issues that no single agency can solve alone. For example, the 2022 National Profile of Local Health Departments (LHDs) by the National Coalition of County and City Health Officials (NCCHO), reports that 73 percent of LHDs reported “participating in a coalition(s) to address one or more health priorities.” Yet anyone who has collaborated across boundaries knows how fraught with peril these organizations can be.

Unfortunately, complex problems have no regard for manufactured borders. The levers needed, whether they involve expertise, authority, and resources, are often spread across a wide range of public, private and civic actors. Coalition efforts are here to stay, but they require a new approach.

The Role of State and Local Government in Coalitions

Public servants are rarely taught 'what good looks like' for coalition design, and in the absence of that, the bureaucratic realities often overwhelm even the most committed collaborative public servant.

As the NCCHO report points out, the 73 percent coalition participation in 2022 was a drop from 88 percent participation in coalitions in pre-pandemic 2019. There are only a few resources out there for public servants, including a couple from ICMA, which can be found here and here, and a third from the Local Government Association. But I think what’s needed to understand ‘what good looks like’ is to use  an operating system lens, similar to the software that runs in the background when you use your computer.

For a coalition, the operating system is the core set of assumptions, beliefs, principles, practices, processes, and policies that act as the foundation upon which the day-to-day work unfolds. Some of this is left unspoken. However, all of determines the fate of the coalition. So, we have to think like systems designers, using every detail at our disposal to nudge the coalition in the right direction. Following are some core components of this kind of effort:

Strategy -- Any form of strategic planning that presumes that the outside world will remain unchanged is not going to stand the test of the next external or political curveball. Get intentional about the how of strategy. Especially with so many different actors involved, and many working ‘side of desk,’ the simpler the better.    

Membership -- Recognize the limitations of your own vantage point when inviting partners to engage. When selecting people to represent your agency, prioritize translators, meaning people who have navigated multiple sectors. They bring the pattern recognition across different institutional contexts that coalitions desperately need to survive.

Authority & Decision-Making -- Clarify authority early and often, both among the roles in the coalition and the authority that coalition members act on in behalf of the entities they represent. Clarify which roles are allowed to make decisions without consulting others. Do an audit on the decisions considering how many require an excess of involvement. 

For complex decisions requiring everyone’s consent (not consensus – that’s often too ambitious) consider using a structured process such as integrative decision making. Get an outside professional facilitator to hold the group to the process to avoid falling into a swirl. Same goes if you know you’re hitting a delicate area of conflicting interests.

Meetings -- Design meetings with as much attention to detail as you might design a wedding. When you describe the purpose of your meeting it should have just one or two verbs in it.  For example, “Make xyz decisions” or “Unblock current work.” Create a cadence of the different kinds of meetings required.  Invest in facilitation training - and encourage others to do the same.

Information & Workflow -- Take an honest look at what it will take for other entities to cooperate with your government agency. Fight the good fight for simpler IT sharing systems so it doesn’t take eight weeks and many frustrating calls to IT to answer a straightforward question.

Additionally, it’s wise to spend far more time focused on understanding and unblocking workflows than on reporting out on what’s being done. Keep a visual log for all to see of unblocked blockages, as a reminder that this is what counts - not reports and updates.

Clarify terms early and often. Coalition members may come from a wickedly diverse range of sectors, walks of life, and worldviews. Your idea of jargon is someone else’s mother tongue, and vice versa. 

In sum, being a public servant who catalyzes successful coalitions is not for the faint of heart. But if we start to think in terms of tending to the whole operating system of the coalition, not just following a recipe of principles, and we can respect the devils in the details, we stand a much better chance of leaning into, not away from the power of coalitions when the pressure is on.

The contents of this Guest Column are those of the author, and not necessarily Barrett and Greene, Inc. 

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