They can only be resolved through collective goodwill and leadership

Leadership & You # 16

Complex social issues can only ever be resolved by communities working together to address and solve them. Governments cannot solve problems, they can only resource solutions through funding and policy commitments. This requires community leaders to park their egos and focus on what is in the best interests of the community and adopt a collective growth mindset.

For over twenty years I have been helping communities co-design a collective impact approach to tackling their urgent community issues. These have included: alcohol fuelled crime and vandalism, ICE addiction, family violence, under 25’s road safety, long term unemployment, access to health care, attracting new residents and employees, and enhancing local liveability to name a few. All of these are complex issues, and whilst there is no silver bullet solution, they cannot be solved by agencies fighting each other for funding, clashes of egos, or turf wars on who should have responsibility. The collective focus must be to move past yet another “summit” on the problem and start to explore possible solutions. This will require a challenging the current status quo and existing thinking, and explore new, creative, and refreshed thinking.

Awareness without action is useless.

Complex community issues can only be resolved with collective commitment, goodwill, collaboration, a trusting environment, and transparent shared responsibility. Easier said than done! It starts with local leaders:

1. Identifying and agreeing the problem to address;
2. Creating an open and transparent platform to communicate and share information;
3. Developing a “coalition of the willing” with some simple team ground rules to follow;
4. Ensuring empathy and safety, so people feel safe to share their thoughts and ideas; and
5. Having diverse participants to promote lateral and fresh thinking. Having the same usual suspects will only promote the same group think and the same genre of solutions.

Complex problems require bold solutions!

If your community requires a united collective approach to address a complex local issue, what follows are some requirements for success:

• A united leadership group from a cross section of the community. This group leads and oversees the issue the collective impact is aiming to address, ensuring a broad range of expertise, perspectives, and experiences. This must be free of egos, bureaucracy, and local politics.
• Sort out governance from the start via a local “backbone” group who will oversee who the auspicing body will be, where any funding will go, a transparent and shared budget, tracking and reporting of both financial and “in-kind “resourcing (who is doing what), reporting requirements, decision making, delegations and authorities, and responsibilities.
• Defined common goals and an overall plan that clearly outlines the purpose of the group, what the vision is, how success will be measured, the outcomes to the community and a simple project summary roadmap. This becomes the founding platform to engage the community and all stakeholders.
• Build strong relationships by having face to face meetings. Building familiarity and trust with each other is a must. Goodwill is created through good relationships. Start with regular meetings to foster dialogue, interaction, and communication with all involved. Deal with unacceptable behaviour and mindsets early in the relationship, so upfront team rules are endorsed and enforced by all.
• Develop a shared dashboard of success which should include data, lived experiences, observable outcomes, and local stories. This is a good way to identify and educate everyone on the measures that matter, and quickly pick up on local trends and issues.
• Continuous feedback loops are key to develop. This should include all communication channels to ensure it reaches the community. Leverage existing networks such as local media (print, radio, TV), community news channels, community groups and their channels, school newsletters, sporting groups, businesses and their local networks, council communications, social media platforms, and local influencers and their meeting places.
• Mobilise resources in a pooled and shared way to maximise impact. Key is to co-ordinate the activities, both in-kind and those that require funds, and above all share feedback on what has been done, so effectiveness, impact and gaps are known and can be addressed. Key is to acknowledge what does or does not work with the available resources.
• Empower and engage the community. It’s important to ensure the community feel what is planned is being done WITH the community , not TO the community. Likewise it’s important to ensure planned solutions are impactful, culturally sensitive and supported by the community.
• Be agile and adaptable. Adopt a “yes we might” philosophy based on the impact, feedback, effectiveness of what is implemented. As “good practice” is revealed, this should signal where more resources are required, or where more focus is needed. Complex social issue solutions are always formative by nature, thus require trial and error!

Finally

It’s important to celebrate the achievements and the contributions of others. Hope and a sense of progress are powerful motivators. This will help encourage more local support and commitment and embolden the community to keep up their enthusiasm and support for local solutions and planned activities. It also helps maintain the energy and support of the army of volunteers donating their time.

Leadership Lesson

The moment a group allows egos, silos and politics to get in the way of solving a problem
is the moment any solution is doomed to fail!

Be the Player on the Field – Facta Non Verba = Deeds Not Words