Make sure that your key contact person in you partnering agency is either the head of the organization or someone who is clearly authorized to speak for them. Commitment relies not only on intentions but actions. Diversity requires that the partnering organizations reflect a wide range of skills and expertise and a cross-section of ethnic, racial, and cultural perspectives. Shared Leadership A collaborative is most effective when all partners exercise leadership. Partners need to work collegially instead of dominating those they perceive as less powerful.
Partners ideally bring a variety of strengths and potential contributions to the table.
These strengths need to be recognized in order to replace top-down, competitive notions of power and control. Setting Ground Rules Successful collaboration requires that everyone in the group contributes to and develops a stake in the process. Ground rules should cover maintaining communication among partners, resolving organizational and personal conflict issues, and planning and conducting meetings. In the most effective collaboratives, partners take time to understand each other's system and explore their differences. Partners with limited knowledge of each other's organization often rely on stereotypes and misconceptions to fill in the blanks.