Extending Collaborative Partnership

Connecting with a broader system of interested parties is critical for navigating today’s complex challenges.

The challenges teams face today are increasingly complex. This complexity is not something that can be overcome with deep and narrow expertise. Instead, these uncertain, ever-changing and potentially volatile environments require diverse collaborative partnerships to form quickly, adopt a design mindset, and begin experimenting and iterating their practice based on what they learn.

Often, a team does not contain the requisite diversity of perspective, experience, capability, or agency. In these cases, extended partnerships are vital. If you take this idea a little further, one might say that for teams to increase the value they create in the world, they must always be building partnerships and collaborating in various ways beyond the traditional boundaries, whether they are team, divisional, organisational, or sector-based. This article shares a set of tactics a team can use to improve collaborative partnering for systemic impact.

Dr Peter Hawkins reminds us that teams exist to fulfil a specific purpose shaped by the stakeholders who define the team’s context. Hawkins’ approach of “outside-in” and “future-back” thinking emphasises that stakeholders—or “interested parties” or “partners”—must guide and inspire the team’s work, ensuring relevance and impact. Without these external connections, teams risk becoming insular and losing sight of their purpose.

How Might a Team Do This?

Achieving meaningful stakeholder engagement requires deliberate actions and strategies:

Map Interested Parties (System Players or Agents)

Using various stakeholder categories to prompt thinking, teams can map their stakeholders to understand who they are and their influence on the team’s purpose. This process might include:

1. Gather team: Assemble a diverse team to ensure comprehensive perspectives. Equip the group with stakeholder category prompts: Investors and Funders, Customers, Suppliers and Providers, Employees and Contractors, Communities in which the organisation operates, The more-than-human world)
2. List players: Invite the group to capture all potential stakeholders across the six categories on sticky notes.
3. Consider the 13th Fairy and 7th Generation: Identify overlooked or underrepresented stakeholders who could disrupt plans if ignored. Reflect on the long-term impact of decisions, ensuring future generations’ interests are represented. See the end of this blog for more information on the 13th Fairy and 7th Generation.
4. Prioritise players: Use criteria like influence, interest, and alignment with the team’s purpose to prioritise stakeholders.
5. Create a visual: Create a stakeholder map or matrix to display relationships and levels of influence.

Design Engagement Practices

Teams can collaboratively design routines and practices tailored to different types of engagement.

Build a shared understanding of your ‘stakeholders’ perspectives.

• Conduct stakeholder interviews to gather in-depth insights about their needs and priorities.
• Facilitate workshops or focus groups to encourage open dialogue and exchange of ideas.
• Use surveys or feedback forms to gather quantitative data on stakeholder attitudes and expectations.
• Develop personas or stakeholder maps to visualise different perspectives and ensure all voices are represented.

Scout out ways to bring new insights and perspectives into the collective.

• Research emerging trends or technologies that could offer fresh viewpoints relevant to stakeholders.
• Invite external experts or thought leaders to present new ideas and stimulate thinking.
• Set up cross-functional teams to foster diverse viewpoints and encourage innovation.
• Leverage data analytics to uncover patterns or insights that may not be immediately obvious to stakeholders.

Practice ambassadorship when representing the collective in the broader system.

• Regularly communicate the collective’s goals, values, and achievements to external stakeholders.
• Maintain an active presence in relevant industry or community events to build visibility and credibility.
• Develop clear and consistent messaging that aligns with the collective’s mission and engages external audiences.
• Foster relationships with key influencers to strengthen support for the collective’s initiatives in the broader system.

Partner with stakeholders to create shared value.

• Co-create initiatives or projects with stakeholders to ensure mutual benefit and alignment with their goals.
• Identify and prioritise joint ventures or collaborations that leverage the strengths of each stakeholder.
• Establish clear communication channels to monitor progress and address any challenges collaboratively.
• Design performance metrics that measure success based on shared value creation and impact.

Establishing Cycles of Engagement and Review

To ensure stakeholder practices remain effective, teams should:

1. Plan engagement Create a calendar of activities, ensuring regular stakeholder interaction. Define clear objectives for each engagement cycle, tied to team goals and stakeholder priorities.
2. Review Process: Hold debrief sessions after each engagement activity to evaluate outcomes and gather feedback. Use stakeholder input to adjust practices and address any gaps or challenges. Maintain records of engagements, insights gained, and actions taken to ensure continuity and accountability.
3. Continuously Improve: Schedule periodic “state of engagement” meetings to review progress. Incorporate feedback from these meetings into the next cycle of planning.

Engaging stakeholders is a dynamic process that underpins a team’s ability to remain purposeful and impactful. By embracing practices inspired by thinkers like Peter Hawkins, Adam Kahane, Peter Block, and Edgar Schein, teams can foster relationships rooted in shared understanding, collaboration, and long-term value creation. This not only ensures the team’s relevance but also strengthens their capacity to tackle the challenges of an ever-changing world.

13th Fairy

Peter Hawkins uses the 13th Fairy as a metaphor for overlooked or excluded stakeholders in organisations and systems. The term comes from Sleeping Beauty, where the 13th Fairy, not invited to the christening, curses the princess in response to her exclusion.

In this context, the 13th Fairy represents individuals, groups, or broader factors (like the environment) that aren’t given a voice in decision-making but can significantly disrupt outcomes if ignored. Examples include disgruntled employees, local communities affected by business operations, or future generations impacted by short-sighted decisions.

Hawkins highlights the need for systemic awareness—recognising and engaging all stakeholders, even those not immediately visible. Doing so prevents conflict, builds inclusivity, and ensures more sustainable outcomes. The 13th Fairy serves as a reminder of the risks of exclusion in leadership and decision-making.

7th Generation

The idea of the 7th Generation draws on Native American wisdom, which prompts us to consider stakeholders across time: the three generations before us, our own, and the three that follow. This perspective encourages systemic thinking, recognising the impact of decisions on past, present, and future stakeholders.

In practice, this means learning from and honouring the contributions of past generations, making responsible decisions that benefit current stakeholders, and ensuring sustainability and resilience for future generations. It’s about balancing the needs of the past, present, and future in every decision.

To find out more about Soji Team Coaching, reach out to us via info@soji.com.au.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash