Shaping Sustainable Change

The Role of Partnership Brokering in Optimising Collaborative Action

Leda Stott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781783538140
• eBook ISBN: 9780429822889
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Multi-actor partnerships are promoted as central to the achievement of sustainable development. However, these relationships are not always easy, and calls are being made for more guidance on how partners can work together effectively to deliver results and achieve meaningful change.

Shaping Sustainable Change explains the growing and significant role of partnership brokering in shaping these relationships. Drawing upon the work of the Partnership Brokers Association, it uses evidenced-based materials to show how the work of partnership brokering contributes to the management of collaborative relationships so that they are better positioned to have a positive and sustainable impact. As well as making the case for partnership brokering, the publication explores the profile and key activities carried out by partnership brokers, and the skills required to undertake this role. Examples are also provided to illustrate how partnership brokering works in practice in relation to different contexts, sectors and themes.

This book will appeal not only to partnership brokers but also to professional and academic readers interested in achieving sustainable development.

Part I
Partnership brokering

Why, what and how?

Chapter 1

The case for partnership brokering

Leda Stott

The systems scientist and cultural historian, Rianne Eisler, views the tensions between social systems that are based upon domination and those that are based on partnership as having shaped human history.¹ She describes the former as a top-down system that relies upon physical, psychological and economic control and the latter as a democratic and egalitarian model based upon relations of mutual respect, accountability and benefit. It is Eisler’s belief that the espousal of a partnership model is essential for building a sustainable future and that the momentum towards this is accelerating.²

There has certainly been heightened interest in working in partnership in recent years. Partnership solutions are widely promoted as the key to addressing societal challenges, particularly ‘wicked problems’. These are problems that, because of their complexity, require collaboration between different individuals, organisations and sectors. Indeed, multi-actor partnerships are positioned as central to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and post-2015 development agenda,³ and collaborative arrangements are being adopted within and across an enormous range of sectors and settings: in both development and humanitarian contexts; among businesses, NGOs, international agencies and public authorities; addressing themes such as education, water and sanitation, health and employment; and operating at local, national, regional and international levels. The benefits of pooling the resources, knowledge and expertise of a diverse range of societal actors include the development of more innovative, coordinated and focused approaches to pressing challenges.⁴

However, while the case for partnership has clearly been made, less attention has been given to how collaborative initiatives are shaped and supported so that they can maximise their potential. Senge, Hamilton and Kania⁵ believe that the success of such arrangements rests upon ‘system leaders’ who are able to ‘catalyse and guide’ systemic change by helping people to build a shared understanding of complex problems, foster reflection and ‘more generative conversations’ and move away from ‘reactive problem-solving to co-creating the future’.⁶ Although Nelson Mandela is used as an example of someone encapsulating these attributes, they stress that the core capabilities for promoting effective collective action can also be learnt and developed by less renowned individuals. This affirmation is echoed by a growing number of partnership researchers and practitioners who have noted the important role played by ‘bridging agents’, ‘bridge builders’, ‘boundary spanners’, ‘change agents’, ‘engagers’, ‘facilitators’ and ‘intermediaries’ to support collaborative arrangements in diverse contextual settings.⁷ Here, we use the overarching term partnership brokering to describe the work of those who provide the ‘connective tissue’ that enables the partners involved in collaborative alliances to work together optimally and augment their ability to achieve positive societal transformation.

What is partnership brokering?

Partnership brokering is fundamentally about providing and nurturing an enabling space for the development of successful partnerships.⁸ Early references to the role of ‘partnership broker’ describe it as one that may be assumed by an individual or an organisation that mediates between different parties to promote the work of a partnership.⁹ As Ros Tennyson explains, partnership brokers may be internal, those who work from within a partnership, and external, those who operate from outside a partnership.¹⁰ Whatever the form assumed, evidence suggests that collaborative arrangements will require and draw upon the services of a partnership broker at some stage in their lifetime.¹¹ Tennyson further states that their role is often low key and may sometimes not be obvious, ‘…but without it the partnership would have been significantly less successful if, indeed, it had got started at all’.¹²

Why is partnership brokering needed?

Partnership brokering is critical for a range of reasons. As well as getting the process of partnering started, it is central to the building and maintaining of partnerships, and important for the promotion and sharing of learning about how partnership works (or does not) in different contexts. According to Manning and Roessler, the support of ‘bridging agents’ ‘who interact across multiple boundaries and translate ambiguous conditions into collaborative opportunities and constraints’ is central to the development of effective long-term alliances.¹³ The implication is that, in a fast-changing world where the development problems we face are increasingly stark and where spaces for debate are contested, identifying and navigating spaces for collaboration is more necessary than ever. By keeping abreast of contextual developments and variations, and anticipating, diagnosing and responding to situations rapidly, partnership brokers are needed to assist prospective partners to read different environments, make decisions about whether or not to work in partnership and adapt collaborative efforts to changing circumstances so that they become more sustainable.¹⁴

Michael Warner asserts that the complexity and challenges of building cross-sector relationships require a form of ‘neutral’ support to achieve consensus and clarity throughout the relationship,

…particular where there are large numbers of partners involved, or where partners have conflicting work cultures and ethics. In these circumstances, an invitation to a mutually acceptable third party to broker consensus at strategic points in the partnering process, such as identifying potential partners or negotiating a Partnering Agreement, becomes not only defensible, but often decisive.¹⁵

Partnership brokering, however, entails much more than simply bringing partners together at particular junctures; it is also about guiding, supporting and challenging those involved to develop solutions that add value to their work and to society as a whole. Increasingly, this requires promoting ‘innovative’ and ‘transformative’ approaches to partnering. Such approaches incorporate methodologies that seek to question and reflect upon standard ways of doing things. In this sense, partnership brokers can play a role that moves collaboration beyond simple exchanges and transactions that are ad hoc or short-term in nature to connections that support lasting systems change. Partnership brokering is thus not just about fostering partnership initiatives but also involves testing and challenging so that we move beyond ‘business as usual’ models and develop opportunities for the achievement of more sustainable solutions to development challenges. This work inevitably requires a delicate balancing between ‘the ideology of collaborative working and the pragmatism needed to get things done’¹⁶, and is likely to require dedication to a range of different issues, some of which are outlined below.

Providing contextual understanding

Partnership brokering can assist an understanding of complex problems in particular contexts. The ability to see the ‘bigger picture’ and assess how collaborative efforts that address systemic issues might be developed within specific operational context is central to this. Leadbeater describes this as the capacity to be ‘rooted and cosmopolitan’, possessing deep familiarity with the local context while also connecting to international ideas and insights.¹⁷ Partnership brokering can therefore offer what might be described as a translation service in which both top-down and bottom-up connections are enhanced as international or national requirements are made sense of at regional and local levels, and given coherence.¹⁸ Such a liaison role also involves making linkages between policy and practice, and between geographical, sociohistoric, sectoral, organisational and individual contexts. This ability is similar to Gladwell’s depiction of the role played by connectors who promote innovation: ‘They are the translators: they take ideas and information from a highly specialised world and translate them into a language the rest of us can understand’.¹⁹ As well as assisting coordination among different players and supporting the promotion of multi-level governance that partnership ostensibly espouses, Waddock notes that this cross-boundary connecting function is central to the promotion of ‘new ways of understanding the world’.²⁰

Partnership brokering can also assist in ensuring that partnership initiatives work within relevant policy and regulatory environments, particularly when partnership aims relate to achieving national development goals and country targets. In recent work on partnerships that address access to basic services, for example, partnership brokers have played a crucial role in ensuring that linkages are developed with national, regional and local levels of government.²¹ By engaging with the public sector in this way, an enabling environment has been promoted in which partnership is favoured by more progressive legislation for collaborative endeavours tackling access to services such as energy, waste management, maternal health and water and sanitation.

Facilitating meaningful dialogue

Warner believes that partnership brokering can play a role in assisting a move away from ‘adversarial’ approaches towards more respectful forms of communication and interest-based negotiation.²² Richard Sennett takes this a step further by suggesting that cooperation demands a process of communication that goes beyond win–win scenarios to the pursuit of ‘dialogic exchange’ in which emphasis is placed on understanding rather than convincing those who have different viewpoints to one’s own.²³ This kind of connection relies upon active listening and the ability to step into the shoes of others. According to Krznaric, such empathy is central to collaboration and vital for ‘…shifting us from a self-interest frame of thinking to a common-interest frame, where our underlying mode of thought is structured by a concern for both ourselves and others’.²⁴

Endorsing principled behaviour

Tennyson and Mundy suggest that ‘people of stature and integrity who understand the value of compromise for a greater good’ are needed to help address increasingly complex mutual challenges.²⁵ There are echoes here of Greenleaf’s call for ‘serv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of images
• List of case studies
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• List of abbreviations
• Foreword
• Introduction
• PART I Partnership brokering
• PART II Partnership brokering in practice
• Bibliography
• Index