Leading Internal Partnerships

Lorilee R. Sandmann, Ph.D.

University of Georgia

Our Tendencies

• Go to a corner based on your tendency• Ask the following questions:

1. Why are we here, do we have something in common?

2. Look around the room, as a group, do we have a useful balance?

3. What might we do to improve our leadership skills?

Testing our Tendencies:A Case Example

Your institution has recently implemented a new strategic plan that places a major emphasis on community engagement. This plan is being spearheaded by the new provost and represents a shift from the current campus culture. Until recently, community-engaged work has been seen as an “extra activity”. The provost is intent on changing this culture, and has asked your team to work specifically on integrating engagement into the academic departments. Your task is to develop a strategy for encouraging and providing incentives for faculty members to begin to incorporate an engaged component to the work that they are already doing.

In the next 15 minutes, develop a plan for how you would begin to formulate a solution to this problem.  

• How did your team come together to form an organized, cohesive unit?

• Based on the leadership inventory that was a part of your pre-work, how did your team's different leadership orientations complement each other?

• Did any conflict arise that may have resulted from differences in leadership orientations? How did your team work through these conflicts?

Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership (5th ed.)

Bolman, L. & Deal, T. (2013).

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Why use the 4 frames?

• To understand organizations from a variety of perspectives

• To analyze leadership styles and strategies of yourself and others

• To enhance one’s own set of leadership tools

• Like maps, frames are both windows on a territory and tools for navigation

8

Frames

A set of assumptions or ideas you keep in our head about a particular territory

Frame Characteristic—Org. Structural as factory

Human resource as extended family

Political as arenas or contests

Symbolic as tribes, theaters or carnivals

Summary of Structural

• Rationality, formal roles and rules

• Key concepts – roles, rules, goals, policies, technology, rationality, differentiation, integration

• Key processes – division of labor and coordination of individual activities

Summary of Human Resources

• Fit between people and the organization

• Key concepts – needs, skills, relationships, interpersonal interactions, fit, satisfaction

• Key processes – tailoring the organization to meet individual needs

Summary of Political Frame

• Allocation of power and scarce resources

• Key concepts – power, conflict, competition, positive politics, power base

• Key processes – bargaining, negotiation, collation building, agenda setting

Summary of the Symbolic Frame

• Organizations as tribe, theater, and carnival

• Key concepts – culture, symbols, ritual, ceremony, stories, heroes/heroines, myths, charisma

• Key processes – common vision, attending to meaning, devising rituals, ceremonies, and symbols

The Symbolic Frame

• Symbols form a cultural tapestry or secular myths, rituals, ceremonies, and stories that help people find meaning, purpose, and passion

• Symbols embody and express the organization's culture – the interwoven pattern of beliefs, values, practices, and artifacts that define for members who they are and how they are to do things

Which Frames to Use to Create Change?

• These are similar to change theories – political, symbolic, human relations and lifecycle.

• How can the frames, particularly political and human relations, help you understand the difficulty of change?

• How can frames be used to create change?

Recall the Case

• How do Bolman and Deal’s frames apply in a “real-world” scenario with actual problems?

• Did your group successfully integrate the four domains of leadership strength to form a strong team?

Questions?• Personally–

– What if I am very strong in one frame and not so strong in others?

– What if I am pretty even through the 4 frames?

• Acton Plan—– What are the implications of my/team’s

preferences and the ability to make change and improvement or to implement the action plan?

Boundary spanners are a “bridge between an organization [college/university] and their exchange partners, competitors, and regulators [community partners]”

(Scott, 1998, p. 196).

Two Functions of Boundary Spanners (Friedman & Podolny, 1992)

• Convey influence between constituents and partners: negotiate power and balance among the institution and community partners to achieve mutual objectives.

• Represent the perceptions, expectations, and ideas of each side to the other: perform teaching and learning functions to promote mutual understanding among organizations

• Spanners in audience? What are your roles?

Task orientation and social closeness as a framework to examine

boundary spanning practices and university-community engagement

Technical, practical tasks

Institutionally focused

University-Community Engagement Boundary Spanning Roles at Public Research Universities

Community focused

Socio-emotional, leadership tasks

Technical expert

Community-based problem solver

Internal engagement advocate

Engagement champion

Build campus capacity for engagement (rewards, promotion, tenure, budget, hiring)

Emphasis on knowledge creation for applied purposes (disciplinary or multidisciplinary)

Focus on building external, political, intra-organizational support, roles may be symbolic

Focus on site based problem support, resource acquisition, partnership development

Presidents, Vice Presidents for Engagement, Center Directors, Deans

Provosts, academic deans

Field agents, outreach staff, clinical faculty

Faculty, disciplinary based

Weerts & Sandmann, 2010, Journal of Higher Education

“Community based problem solver”

• “Sandy”, Midwest Metro University (MMU), director of the neighborhood initiatives program, assistant dean of community health, College of Nursing. “Ed,” outreach specialist, Great Lakes State University (GLSU)

• Task orientation: technical, practical, facilitate community involvement

• Social closeness: community integrated, gatekeeper• Background: outreach/academic staff appointment, may

or may not hold terminal degree, community-based, high socio-emotional skill base in addition to some technical (may vary in skill levels)

“Technical expert”• “Mary,” Professor, Great Lakes State

University• Task orientation: technical, scholarly

expertise to address a community problem• Social closeness: institutionally integrated• Background: traditional faculty member,

Ph.D., high technical proficiency, applied expertise, facilitated by community advocate

• Technical experts may or may not posses same degree of socio-emotional skills leading to conflict, bounded by traditional academic culture

“Institutional engagement advocate”

• “Frank” Dean of Public Policy School, Southern Urban University (SUU)

• Task orientation: socio-emotional, leadership to support engagement

• Social closeness: institutionally integrated, yet recognized as important outside

• Background: Provost, academic deans• Primarily support engagement internally

(bridge to technical experts)

“Engagement champion”

• “Don” VP for Public Engagement, Southern State U; “Kathy” Ct. Director, Midwest Metro University

• Task orientation: socio-emotional, high profile leadership to support engagement

• Social closeness: community integrated• Background: Wide range: government or

community leader, technical expert, problem solver turned champion?

• Close to needs of the community, main champion of external efforts to support engagement, bridge to internal engagement advocates

Leaders Use of Framework

• Diagnostic Tool

• Help understand roles and potential conflicts among spanners

• Implications for coordinating boundary spanning roles/strategies and advancing engagement, internally and externally? (Plot analysis? Training for roles?)

Spanners experiences/values may conflict with organizational responsibilities…

• Community-based problem solvers: community integrated but employed by the university. Allegiances?

• Technical experts: community sensitivity and alignment with traditional academic culture?

• Engagement champions: can become disconnected with problem center and outpace internal advocacy (symbols over substance?)

• Internal engagement advocates: face conflicts in changing the academic culture

Leading from the Middle

Getting Ready to Expand Your Efforts (1)

• How does this effort support institutional priorities? – Clearly state the core value/mission that you want to

sustain and the connection to the larger mission at your institution and to students’ educational success.

• What assets already exist that can support this work? – Describe the assets that you have identified and how

you can gain or maintain access to them.

Getting Ready to Expand Your Efforts (2)

• Who needs to know about your work? – Prioritize the gatekeepers or stakeholders who

influence or control the distribution of resources and the setting of institutional priorities. Within your campus governing and decision-making structure, where can you generate the most interest and potential support both for your own project and for the larger changes that will be needed for the vision to be embraced and incorporated into your campus culture?

Getting Ready to Expand Your Efforts (3)

• How will you get their attention? – What are the venues for raising awareness? Prioritize

these venues and conversations.

• What is your message to these stakeholders?– How will you talk about your AP and the value of this

work?

Getting Ready to Expand Your Efforts (4)

Now, outline your message starting with the point that is most likely to gain traction in your environment with particular audiences.

• What are people concerned about on campus?• Why might they be interested in your work, assuming

they haven’t heard about it or don’t know much about it yet?

• How will you work with your team and others to craft your message and back it up with stories, examples, lessons learned, etc.

• How will you make your case if you get a few more minutes to talk about your work?

Questions to Ponder!• What’s our motivation for an internal partnership?

– Access to skills or expertise?– Access to unique internal or external connections?– Visibility for the work?– Increase speed, impact, scale/scope, replication?– Other?

• Who do we need and why?– What boundary spanners do we current have?– Who are we lacking?– How well are they doing their spanning roles?– To what degree is their alignment and coordination?– Who is the key contact/connection?– Who must approve? Who might object?– What do you need to do to increase your own agency?

• How will we manage structural/policy barriers?– Budgets, who pays for what?, decision-making, attribution, recognition– Other?

Leadership in Your Action Plan

• How can you apply these new leadership principles/frameworks to your action plan?