Cross Collaborate

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As in any other field, public sector consensus building always gets to the critical moment when choices have to be made. In my experience, how a group accomplishes this reveals more about motives behind decisions than any other step in the process. Several years ago, I worked with a large group to build consensus on [...]

In the previous post in this series, I discussed the concept of the public as a network comprised of interrelated groups, some focused on private interests, some focused on larger community concerns or institutions. The approach to public involvement that definition suggests is a collaborative one that draws citizens into the early stages of formulating [...]

Who controls collaboration? That might seem a contradiction in terms since the process itself requires joint decisions by the participants. But the issue of control doesn’t go away so easily. Several months into policy negotiations with a large collaborative group, I arrived at the last planning session for a critical meeting that was to take [...]