Working with

complex dilemmas

The effectiveness of

collaboration

Annette Lees

Levels of engagement, IAP2

Level of engagement commitment

Promise to people and organisations

Inform ‘We will keep you informed’

Consult ‘We will keep you informed, listen to and acknowledge your concerns and aspirations’

Involve ‘We will work with you to ensure that your concerns and aspirations are directly reflected in our alternatives.’

Collaborate ‘We will look to you for direct advice and innovation, and will incorporate your recommendations to the maximum extent possible.’

Empower ‘We will implement what you decide.’

Collaboration – you know you’re soaking in it.

• Land and Water Forum• Kaimai Inter-Agency Coordination

Committee• Community-Owned Rural Catchment

Management• Christmas with the family

A range of meanings and applications

Collaborative processes: Sharing information, finding common ground, debating solutions, seeking consensus resolution.

Collaborative governance“A process in which participants representing different interests are collectively empowered to make a policy decision or make recommendations to a final decision-maker who will not substantially change the consensus recommendation from the group.”Guy Salmon

Why choose collaboration?

• More likely to resolve complex issues than consultative processes.

• More likely to result in innovative solutions, better tailored to specific catchments.

• Leads to a stronger sense of ownership.• Solution more likely to be enduring and robust.• Builds communities and enhances individuals.• Expand problem-solving competence by drawing on

stakeholders’ wide range of knowledge, understanding and resources.

When is collaboration essential?

Solving “wicked problems”, dilemmas where:

• High degree of concern, upset or interest about an issue• Causes complex and involve many stakeholders• Technical experts disagree or are unclear• Previous single stakeholder initiatives have not worked• Likely to be difficult to get agreement among stakeholders • Difficult for the lead agency to implement the programme

on its own• Solutions are not clear or might take the lead agency into

new and uncertain territory.

and especially where..People who are required to make change are engaged in

decision-making about that change

Video: The Cynefin ModelBy Dave Snowden at Cognitive Edge

‘Cynefin’: the place of your multiple belongings Four types of problems:• Simple• Complicated• Complex• Chaotic

Simple problems

Relationship between cause and effect is predictable.Best practice will solve the problem.

Complicated problems

Relationship between cause and effect is not predictable.Experts, good practice will solve the problem.

Complex problems

Without clear causality.Solutions lie in experimentation and finding new ways to do things.Social situation complex.

Chaos

No cause and effect.Have to stabilise situation quickly.Solution lies in command and control.

Group work

• Is your dilemma a problem that is simple, complicated, complex or chaos?

• How could you help your organisation commit to a collaborative process to resolve it?

• Is there a bright spark idea from this session that would help address your dilemma?