Smart Collaboration

Sustainable development can only be achieved in partnership with others

In smart collabora-on with

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The challenges brought by the need for sustainable development are of such proportions that they cannot be addressed by individual organizations anymore. More and more people are convinced that systemic changes are required, that different actors from society have to work together. Co-creation and shared values are gaining an increasing importance as they lie at the basis of structural partnerships. This booklet and its related website wwww.smartcollaboration.be is not an end result, but merely a starting point. It marks KAURIs search to find the key principles of smart collaboration - inspiring cases, insights, tips and tricks. It is based on the input of its broad and diversified membership of private sector companies, NGOs, academics and public authorities.

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

Content

7 principles of smart collaboration, tips and best practices

From inspiration to collaboration Why collaboration matters (sometimes) KAURI members on collaboration #1 Identify a challenge core to your sustainability strategy and relevant to stakeholders #2 Mobilize a team of complementary actors #3 Be transparent on why you participate #4 Be clear on desired outcome and be result driven #5 Share each others assets #6 Manage the partnership #7 Keep an open and appreciative attitude Stay tuned to smart collaboration

KAURI members on collaboration

35 KAURI members spend half a day discussing their views and experience on collaboration

On September 18th, 2012, 35 KAURI members got together to share their experience, expertise, insights and thoughts on multi-actor collaboration. Representatives of NGOs, companies, governmental organisations and research institutions tapped into a set of statements that were based on years of research by Dr.Patrick Kenis of Antwerp Management School. The discussion resulted in 7 principles on how to identify a smart collaboration on sustainability. These 7 basics are a starting point for further discussion and will hopefully evolve the upcoming years, powered by the progressive insight of all of us.

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

KAURIs mission

Dear Reader, KAURI is very proud to present this electronic publication on smart collaboration to jointly address sustainability challenges.. The blog and e-booklet have been created to celebrate our 15th anniversary and aim to represent what KAURI is all about: stimulating interaction between stakeholders in Belgium on sustainability in a climate of trust and in an innovative way. Sustainability in 2012 has become mature and is more and more integrated into the strategy of our members than it was when KAURI was founded in 1997. KAURI members are linking societal challenges more and more to their values and core business strategy. In the coming years, we would like to empower and support our members in moving from inspiration to collaboration when addressing their sustainable development. We would like to use the power of our members to co-create systemic and profound change towards a more sustainable world. We can only make significant steps by identifying a relevant challenge and working together with different stakeholders in order to achieve common goals. The central theme of the 15th anniversary of KAURI is therefore completely dedicated to this topic of creating collaborative advantages. To help our members in this process, we launch the KAURI principles on Smart Collaboration. These KAURI principles have been created in tandem with our members, and are illustrated with examples, and tips and tricks on our website. We have deliberately chosen an open ended approach as opposed to an A-to-Z manual. We will continue to use online tools to gather the insights and experiences from our members and make these accessible to our broad network of 270 member-organisations. We welcome you to contribute to these principles on www.smartcollaboration.be , by sharing your comments, and publishing your experiences on what went well and what could be improved when engaging in partnerships on sustainable development. Kind regards [David Leyssens, Network Director KAURI, @smartcollabo ] [Wouter Vermeulen, Chairman of the Board]

For a more sustainable world, we need to move from inspiration to collaboration

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

Prof. dr. Patrick Kenis

Collaboration has become a new mantra in the world of organisations. On the one hand this is surprising, but on the other hand it is not. It is surprising because, from a management perspective, collaboration is the most complicated way to get things done. In a collaboration you not only have to steer your own organisation into achieving results but you also have to make sure that the collaboration (made up of organizations facing similar internal problems as yours) also produces results. You become dependent on others to get things done. So why is there so much (effective and much less effective) collaboration these days? An important reason is that modern societies are facing many threats and have many opportunities that cannot be handled by a single organisation. There are threats like the consequences of climate change, limits to mobility and a decreasing quality of life for many. There are also numerous opportunities which can only be materialised through the collaboration of entire organisations, for example product innovations, new forms of crisis prevention or new ways of learning. It is fascinating to see that more and more organisations are ready and willing to give up part of their sovereignty and co-create value with others. If only Management and Business Schools would follow and start teaching a course Collaborative Strategy rather than Competitive Strategy. [Professor Dr. Patrick Kenis, Antwerp Management School, @patrick_kenis]

Why collaboration matters

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

Collaboration between multiple societal actors, provides us with the potential to address and anticipate the big challenges in sustainability on a systemic level that would not be possible on an individual scale. [ Wouter Vermeulen, Coca-Cola Europe ]

Read here, how WWF and Delhaize work together to make sure people can still enjoy fish tomorrow.

Smart Principle #1

Identify a challenge core to your sustainability strategy and relevant to stakeholder

Is a challenge relevant to us, or are we relevant to a challenge? During our workshop, everyone agreed that it is important to focus and think of those sustainability challenges that your organisation and people may have a positive impact on. It is easy to identify societal and environmental challenges that will sooner or later affect your organisation. But if you reverse this, youll also find that every organisation has the potential to provide a positive contribution to a challenge. It requires introspection and a more strategic thought process, but is a valuable exercise. In what field does your core activity, expertise and know-how increase the likelihood of making significant steps forward? If you find an answer to that question and form a coalition with partners that provide complementary services in terms of expertise and leverage, the chances are you will make a huge difference. Thats what we consider as relevance. Does a challenge always have to be big in order to partner up with other organisations? It is not size or scale that legitimises collaboration. It is complexity, because complexity requires more than one perspective to think and act. If you have influence, competence and capacity enough to face the issue on your own, then you do not require collaboration. KAURI members on challenges: The challenges we meet today require an increasing diversity of well orchestrated competences in order to succeed. Were used to meeting individual needs in a competitive environment. Today we have to prepare meeting societal concerns in a collaborative environment. Different actors need to recognize the big challenges and the leverage of collaboration in order to overcome individual self-interest. No matter the complexity of the challenge, the process of collaborative acting should be lean and mean in order to succeed.

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

A current project between different players in passive housing illustrates that it is perfectly possible to be very different in terms of company DNA, values and corporate mission. One organisation aims to fight global warming, another just wants to sell materials or build houses. Yet as a consortium, both can succeed - teaming up to build climate neutral neighbourhoods. [Katrien Barrat, Futureproofed, @katrienbarat]

Read here how Vredeseilanden and Colruyt team up with farmers of Benin To increase the quality of rice

Smart Principle #2

Mobilize a team of complementary actors

Who should you involve?

After you have identified a challenge, it is time to look for structural partners. Find actors that share the same challenge. Take a holistic approach and include societal actors regardless if you perceive them as being favourable or not towards your organisation. Look across the value chain and assess how suppliers and customers are involved with the issue at hand. Consider reaching out to competitors. Only by broadening the scope of potentially involved partners, you will find the expertise, approaches, beliefs and support that are different than yours and will contribute towards a successful partnership. The only prerequisite that needs to be met is the willingness of all partners to learn form, share and work with others. With how many should we collaborate? At the basis of this question is ambivalence. Most people feel that the fewer actors involved, the easier and faster your process. Yet consider the opposite and we see that the more organisations involved, the stronger your potential leverage. As partnerships are dynamic processes, the number of actors in involved can change over time. Also, the more diverse the audience you can mobilise, the more opportunities you create for systemic change. The result is win-win. KAURI members on complementarity:

These days, collaboration is creating a lot of buzz, but it doesnt always lead to happy, likeminded people and togetherness. The more systemic the challenge that needs to be approached, the less likely it is that you can face the challenge on your own or with organizations with a similar DNA. Most of the time, actors are brought together based on trust. Therefore, they might agree too much, and risk not challenging each other enough. When it comes to representation ask yourself the key question: Do we have everyone around the table? For example: If the farmers union is in, does that also mean that farmers are represented? Dont mix up people with organisations, especially not when you require competences and input from daily reality.

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

EVA and Boerenbond won't become friends overnight, but despite of that, we've both put our cards on the table and opened a dialogue to discover area's where we can work together. [Tobias Leenaert, Eva vzw, @evaveggies ]

Read here how different players in the food Industry work together for responsible advertising policies

Smart Principle #3

Be transparent on why you participate

The more open you are in the beginning, the lower the risk of bumping into unpleasant surprises along the way. Previous principles show that actors don't have to share the same world view in order to collaborate successfully. But what is important is openness among organizations as to why they are participating. Stay true to who you are: NGOs dont need to pretend to be businesses and businesses dont need to pretend they act like an NGO. Rather accept the diversity and the unique contribution each partner brings to the table. So don't try to be perfect. Don't hide any agendas; instead be honest about your position, other projects, and potential changes to occur. Be open about your intentions and motivations to support collaborative project. Dont forget to be open to your own followers on the collaboration Pro-actively explain and defend the partnership: not everyone of your internal of external stakeholders might appreciate your involvement in a partnership with certain partners. Acknowledge this, engage with these stakeholders on the importance of the partnership for your organisations and keep them informed as the work progresses. KAURI-members on transparency: You will reduce the risk of conflicts if all parties declare at what point they consider the outcome of the project to be a success. Agree what you want to achieve together and put it in some kind of Memorandum of Understanding. Equally important: agree to disagree and accept that major differences between partners will persist but these should not undermine the common ground found.

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

In our participative projects with citizens, we see that a sense of urgency for change brings people together, but it is a set of goalsand an attractive idea of the outcome that pushes their common creative process further. [Yves Larock, Stichting Lodewijk De Raet, @yves_larcok]

Read here how companies like Colruyt, Pepsico, Sarah Lee and Unilever share tools and objectives to reduce their carbon footprint

Smart Principle #4

Be clear on desired outcome and be result driven

What gets measured gets managed In order to manage a collaboration with different players, goals should be single minded, feasible, and measurable, so different players involved can agree, feel motivated and understand what to achieve. Putting things in practice Define your goals, when and how to achieve them. Make a difference between goals on the long term and quick wins. Perform back-casting: define your vision on the long term and plan your actions in reverse as stepping stones towards your ultimate outcome. KAURI-members on outcome-setting : If there are low-hanging fruits, it is easy to make participants act and be motivated by early successes. Starting with a compelling vision and a clear set of goals is an important kickstart, but it also needs some intermediate targets in order to keep the process going. Make your goal-setting ambitious and clear. Open your collaboration with a big bang. Fussy goals and fussy kick-starts often lead to a fussy process and fussy commitment. Some KAURI members refer to the SMART-model (a model to set objectives, often called key performance indicators: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely).Working with this model urges a group to manage expectations and provokes appropriate debate on roles and responsibilities. It also aligns process and the planning with the end result.

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

Smart Principle #5

In most cases, people bring stakeholders and ususal suspects around the table (the unions, employees, trade organisations, ) But more and more it would be a terrible mistake to forget about what we call your beyond peers like professors that are critical about what you do in the media, bottom-up organisations or experts, artists, foureigners or even children who can come up with surprising fresh approaches and thoughts to challenge your thinking [Cato Lonard, Glassroots, @catoleonard]

Share each others assets

Sharing will expand partnerships scope Share and value the assets that each partner brings to the table. An effective partnership will leverage and extend each partners assets, so that the partnerships scope is greater than either organisations individual potential. Ensure that the partnership will further your own mission, but will also offer a return on investment for your partner organisation and will contribute to the overall societal goal. Make sure your collaboration goes in depth. Take enough time to get to know each others assets and think out of the box. . Make sure you dont only stick to the evident assets. Keep a holistic overview. Dont be afraid to bring in experts to challenge the partnership. Outsiders have the ability to look with a fresh view. KAURI-members on sharing: Engage people with field experience, people with technical skills, well connected people in the sector and people who have strategic and creative input. Take the effort of in-depth understanding of your partners business or activities. You will find assets like brand-power, presence at retailers, consumer insights, brain power, access to their networks that are of crucial importance to make the partnership work and are not necessarily expensive Sharing is not the issue, the trust to share is. Once you have build trust, the rest will follow. You need competence, but you also need a license to fail. Successful failure exists - we should allow it to happen and learn from it. Experiments often lead to happy surprises. If your process is flexible, you can plug in and out of competences if necessary. Do not just pull in knowledge and expertise, you must also manage knowledge and expertise

Read here how Port of Antwerp aims for a more sustainable port by sharing ideas and insights

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

It is time for a different type of leadership. We learned that leadership is no longer a defined task, linked to fixed functions with their status. Leadership in networks and for effective partnerships is a social process filled in 'on the fly' by multiple individuals. Shared leadership can by several people from different types of functions and processes, and also different organizational frameworks to be filled in. [Walter Tempst, OVAM and VZW Plan C, @tempstwalter @Plan_C]

Read how the G1000 sets up a clear framework for managing a massive collaboration at smartcollaboration.be

Smart Principle #6

Manage the partnership

There should be clarity about what or who is in charge. There are many ways to organize collaboration. Many KAURI-members favor an organizational partnership model with one lead organization - an internal or external party who is in charge of overseeing the process. This way one actor is dedicated to pushing and streamlining the process forward. They tackle potential conflicts of interest and keep focus, which might otherwise blur during the project. Whether you assign one participant with a mandate to take the lead or not, it should be clear to everyone what or who decides on rhythm and direction. This provides another learning-opportunity for partners involved who can share their respective project-management methodology, ensuring the partnership progresses in the best possible way. KAURI-members on manage the partnership : When a challenge is complex, it is better to slice up the workload into small tasks, powered with sub goals. This way the group can evolve from one achievement to another. It also increases motivation and involvement. The stronger the consensus on values, the less need for a moderating by a lead organisation. But the more seamless, the more the coalition risks becoming merely a chatroom. It is important that the steering doesnt just happen in the meeting room. A to-do list also needs follow-up with actions in between the status meetings. Whoever is in charge, they should keep monitoring and managing expectations, understanding the enthusiasms and involvements of all participants. Avoid mechanisms whereby one partner would become dependent from the other. This often happens when the partnership is financially driven and partners input is not equally valuated. Have a partnership contract and be clear on things like internal and external communication, the right to sue each others logos, when the partnership ends, what to do with the acquired assets etc.

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark

We've seen collaborations where NGO's are considered as a great resource with years of research and expertise in the field, and NGO's that consider corporations as powerful levers of change. Appreciation is something that keeps collaboration on the right temperature. [Danny Jacobs, Bond Beter Leefmilieu, @dannyjacobs03]

Read here how the KAURIs Job Switch Days engaged Delhaize and Max Havelaar to create a deeper understanding by exchanging jobs

Smart Principle #7

Keep an open and appreciative attitude

Optimism as a necessary factor for productivity As final principle, many of us agreed with the importance of a positive attitude towards eachother and the common goals you have ahead. In a collaborative setup, progress is difficult if we keep thinking in boxes and stick to the traditional oppositions and prejudices of the past. The key is to be pushed forward by the potential and capabilities of your team as it exists now, and feed the process with what is, and not being discouraged by what we are not. Most managers do very well in the context of traditional problem solving: identify a problem, conduct root cause analysis, think of a solution and develop action plans. As being said, from a management perspective, collaboration is the most complex way of getting things done. Management skills are crucial of course, but on top of that, collaborative progress requires an appreciative openness and a set of additional capabilities. Think of skills like valueing the best of what is and unlock potential among participating people. A strong imagination should help us imagining what might be and share it. Our conversational skills should allow us to agree on what should be, and our creative skills should help us create what will be. Again, this is a plea to bring people with all kind of skills and backgrounds around the table: the managers, the policy makers, the scientists, the strategists, the dreamers and the creatives. KAURI members on appreciation: The focus of leadership should always be on the allignment of strenghts in order to make our shortcomings redundant. The right appliication of competence, reliability, integrity and communication are vital to generate trust in every collaboration. Trust and appreciation go hand-in-hand.

Even the compilation of this booklet was a confrontation of different view points. To tell you the truth, collaboration is sometimes messy. But it was only by appreciation of contributions from different corners within the KAURI network, we managed to come up with a compilation of thoughts that can work as an outset. We wish you a happy collaboration [Stefaan Vandist, Studio Spark, @talkwithspark ]

Stay tuned to smart collaboration

Feel free to join the conversation, share thoughts, experiences and best practices via our website

www.smartcollaboration.be
This is the place where wed like to collect and share some inspiring examples and insights on smart collaboration. We hope this platform will spark the process of progressive insight on this challenging topic, and will be a resource of inspiration for the entire KAURI network.

Char les Darwin: In the long history of mankind, those wh o learned to collabo and improvise most rate effectively have prev ailed #smar tcollabo ration Albert Einstein: No problem can be solved from the sa me level of conscio that created it #sm usness ar tcollaboration Beth Noveck: We dont live in a pa ssive society, a read -only society, but in writable society #sm a ar tcollaboration His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Happiness is not some thing ready made. It comes from your ow n actions #smar tco llaboration Peter Dr ucker: The best way to pred ict the future is to cr eate it #smar tcollaboratio n
Henr y Ford: If ever yone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself #smar tcollaboration Napoleon Hill: It is literally tr ue th at you can succee d best and quickest by helpin g others to succee d.#smar tcollabora tion Peter Senge: Collaboration is vital to sustain w hat we call profou without it, organi nd change, beca zations are just use overwhelmed by the forces of th e status quo

Follow @smartcollabo on twitter to stay tuned with every update and more.

written and composed by KAURI, Antwerp Management School and Studio Spark