The Collaboration as a Process - Report Example

Colab Affiliation: Leadership, Structure, Roles, and Rules In the building of the collaboration among different leadership departments as well as academic stakeholders, the key functions of the collaboration are addressed. Addressing the key functions takes a holistic approach to communicating the merit of the desired changes as well as mobilization of the available resources. Additionally, as the collaboration seeks to promote functional and progressive improvements to students’ learning outcomes, all stakeholders are briefed regarding the necessity of the changes as well as the functional benefits of the collaboration. In this case, time management in attendance of meetings, contribution to the formation of a collaborative mechanism to educating K-12 students, and the assumption of personal responsibility contributes to the collaboration success. Considering the duties of each stakeholder, it is observed that each has a personal responsibility to play such that the goals of the collaboration are met in a timely manner. Thus, by assigning different responsibilities to partners and ensuring that they deliver on the tasks as a team requires discipline such as time management, relevance to the task, and foundation for building or developing innovation. These requirements contribute to the formalization of leadership, functional roles, and operational rules. However, as much as immediate assumption of the roles is anticipated, handling of risks is approached through the analysis of the benefits as well as a progressive approach to integrating changes into the academic sphere. By approaching the collaboration as a process rather than an event, scheduling of meetings and routine communication have been appreciated as strategic approaches to ensuring stakeholders gradually understand and eventually support the collaboration by assuming active roles in its development and sustainability (Blank, Lalaville, & Shah, 2003). Development of Action Plan In order for the collaboration to better the deployment of academic packages and nurturing of student knowledge, various stakeholders have to combine efforts such that as a team, joint efforts can bring the best out of the K-12 academic system. Among the strategies to get the collaboration to its maturity include application of Results Based Leadership (RBL). RBL is responsible for nurturing responsibility among collaboration stakeholders and attracting participation to the doubtful. The characteristics elements of the RBL include definition of roles, delegation of work, creation of problem-solving capacity, scheduling and attendance of purposeful meetings, conflict management to catalyze development, normalization of meetings such that everyone’s voice is heard, and engagement of leaders as peers to create and deploy strategies targeting a common outcome. The above elements of RBL contribute in the communication and deployment of plans, luring and inviting endorsement, and creation of mutual interest inviting meetings to communicate and discuss actions of the collaboration (Friedman, 2005). Success Initiation To ensure that the collaboration is beneficial and relevant to the course upon which it is deployed, the most urgent and least controversial objectives are addressed first. However, in order to isolate goals in terms of their priorities, the collaboration requires focusing on a single and measurable result. Considering an example of students excelling in school is a population-level result. Thus, through the application of the RBL, leaders need to work across organizational margins. By focusing on single and measurable results at a time provides foundation for early but small successes. Based on the areas where changes indicate success, redeployment of the same strategies to future tasks predicts higher chances of succeeding hence elevated morale amongst stakeholders. Bond Creation among Partners Deploying collaborative leadership skills ensures that various individuals from varying sectors are able to take a common course of action. In order to build bonds among stakeholders in the collaboration, deployment of leadership competences motivates stakeholders to work in alignment in servicing the goals of the collaboration. In the development of early bonds that would at later times be used to influence partners to being professional and prepared to compromise in the support of a collaborative decision-making, results accountability and disparities’ reductions are methods used to create and sustain the internal environment. Additionally, the application of collaboration leadership ensures that partners are onboard with a shared decision-making process to make the collaboration a success. To the best interest of a collaboration, leaders are to lead from the middle thus influencing others to take action as a team (Blank, Lalaville, & Shah, 2003). Success Celebration Optimism in collaboration is one among the issues the Collaboration Life Cycle addresses as a motivational factor for partners. While proposal based decision-making ensures that everyone’s voice is heard, it also provides the chance for partners to weigh in on everyone’s voice thus isolating bad ideas and resulting in a proposal that everyone is comfortable and ready to support. Partners sharing their proposals are open to measure the impact of these proposals and find convergence. For partners who do not feel like certain proposals serve the desired purpose are encouraged to offer the approach that covers the point of weakness. By allowing everyone to be part of the decision making process and encouraging them to provide proposals towards a common course ensures that partners feel rewarded for their contribution towards a beneficial course. In addition, accountability pathway is created through the discussion of core commitments of partners. Partners identify who made it happen, how challenges were handled, and how others could help to propagate the process. Through the recognition of individual effort in meeting or accomplishing various objectives, collaboration partners feel supported. External publicity is an additional approach to mobilizing supporters to build momentum. The use of external publicity has been a major influencing factor in the development of collaborations in academic spheres. Assessment, Adjustment, and Bond Reinforcement Through the application of the Theory of Aligned Contributions, it is expected that all partners in a collaboration must be in alignment in the decision-making process (Pillsbury, 2009). To gain support, leaders require to mobilize target partners by communicating the eminent issues and their corresponding impacts. Additionally, by providing an overview of proposed approaches to some of the challenges drives the partners to support the collaboration. To those identifying the challenges, theirs is the responsibility to offer room for support by explicitly stating why others should support the collaboration. To ensure that partners support and continue to support the collaboration, it is the application of the Theory of Aligned Contributions that assigns partners the responsibilities to tie them down to the collaboration’s goals. Creating the sense of responsibility among partners makes them not only unable but also unwilling to leave the collaboration. With responsibilities assigned to different individuals, the collaboration adjusts the bonds among partners regarding how deeply involved they are and the influence they have in the accomplishment of specific goals. Goal Centeredness In the measurement of success and progress of a collaboration, indicators such as quantity and quality measures are applied. The quantity and quality of a collaborative program is measured in terms of individual efforts and the outcome. Thus, the collaboration makes use of quantity checks to indicate what was done and who performed best. How much service delivered as well as how much effect it had are quantitative measures to indicate success. On the other hand, the service quality and the quality of outcome measures who well the service was delivered as well as who delivered the best service. The variables of success measurement include quantity, quality, level of effort applied, and resulting outcomes and are known to the partners. In order to fulfill the purpose of the collaboration, the collaboration partners assess short-term accomplishments and apply best practice in planning for long-term goals. For the collaboration to survive and be sustainable, partners should make use of research such that the collaborations gradually develops into a flexible, ever-functional, and stable partnership unlimited to current state of affairs but also mindful of the future (Friedman, 2005). Change Measurement As collaboration teams move to implement changes, their achievement depends on clear communication; collaborative decision-making, and recognition of both individual and team efforts. On the down side, some challenges have the potential to erode the accomplished changes and comprise of poor communication, dictating leadership, and poor planning of the approaches to take. However, two steps to mitigate these risks include the development of a support system that assembles occasionally to address team wide concerns and regular updates on previous accomplishments. To measure whether the leadership structures, roles, and rules of collaboration stick; considerations such as effort integration, resource allocation and deployment, and rewarding system to compliment individual efforts. Revisit & Renew Mission For collaborations to work effectively, partners are routinely invited to schedule meetings to brief them of the accomplished tasks and those to come. Benchmarks are important in this process and are regularly revisited to align effort with the mission of the collaboration. Through the utilization of the proposal based decision-making approach, the collaboration is able to accommodate the voices of all stakeholders. This process allows for the exploration of pros and cons, and room for revising the mission. During the schedule meetings, the flexibility of the collaboration provides grounds for change in mission. However, through collaborative leadership and application of RBL, partners can align their preparedness with a change in mission without necessarily abandoning their primary responsibilities. References Blank, B., Lalaville, A., & Shah, B. (2003). Making the Difference. Research and Practice in community schools. Institute of Educational Leadership. Friedman, M. (2005). Trying hard is not good enough. Trafford. Pillsbury, J. (2009). Theory of Aligned Contributions: An Emerging Theory of Change Promer. 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