How to motivate a collective around a common agenda.
What to do when your results depend on people who don’t report to you.
I recently attended the Collective Impact Forum’s Action Summit. There were a thousand attendees in the business of change gathered for a three-day agenda packed with multiple sessions during any given hour. It’s so hard to pick when every session is aspirational. “From Changing Systems to Transforming Systems” was one. Who doesn’t want that? Sign me up.
Lauren Thomas of E3 Alliance, an Austin-based nonprofit, led the session. When she said: “We are attempting to undertake massive systemic change with no real authority over anyone to make it happen,” I wondered if the conference planners had tapped my phone. Collective action makes so much sense. Rallying of like-minded organizations around a common cause. Allowing nonprofits to cooperate on problem solving rather than compete for donors. So good.
Except that no one’s in charge.
In my case, that meant working with a backbone organization that funded more than 20 client-serving nonprofits. While each had contractual obligations for continued funding, none were obliged to comply with my instructions. I’ve seen this recipe for frustration as the price to pay for all the good that can come from collective action.
There’s a certain amount of chaos management inherent to aligning the efforts of a disparate coalition. But E3 shared a framework called Theory of Action™ that helps. Basically, it unites stakeholders and shares data so that the collective can identify insights. And those insights allow the group to establish a common agenda. The important part – it’s working.
Let me define working.
E3 connects things like being ready for kindergarten to high school graduation rates and economic mobility. Their data and outcomes have led to policy change, most notably the legislation mandating universal pre-K in Texas.
The science behind why it’s working.
The basic structure of the Theory of Action™ framework is behavioral science in action, providing built-in accountability. Behavioral science identifies four accountability mechanisms:
Evaluation
Identifiability
Reason-giving
The mere presence of one another
In E3’s case, here’s how I saw that breaking down:
Evaluation – They asked educational and community leaders to identify how programs need to evolve and change.
Identifiability – There was rigorous data collection on each partner’s performance.
Reason-giving – There was ongoing reporting of favorable and unfavorable interventions.
The mere presence of one another – They brought program participants together for monthly meetings and an annual conference.
Why you need to stop using outcome-based accountability.
In schools, accountability is typically outcome-based, meaning test scores. This approach is flawed because it uses only two of the accountability mechanisms, evaluation and identifiability. Using all four would result in a cycle of continuous improvement. Remember, the session was titled “From Changing Systems to Transforming Systems,” and I’d argue that the transformation of anything complex requires more than three years and a cycle of continuous improvement.
Expansion can be an enemy.
Sometimes I think the curse of the well-intentioned is that we all want to do more. “We are attempting to undertake massive systemic change with no real authority over anyone to make it happen” certainly got my attention at the top of the hour, then I was left with the following gem at the end:
Grow deeper not bigger.
E3 had the opportunity to grow their network to include more institutions of higher education. But, after reviewing the data, they identified remaining concerns and decided to pause on expansion. Instead, they opted to involve more people in their existing service area and double down on the strong collaborative partnerships already in place. Doing so allowed for the network to share successes and failures and determine collectively how to best shape the program with an eye toward continuous process improvement. Think how this kind of restraint could improve your results.
I hope today’s post has you ready to get together with some folks who need you but don’t answer to you. It can work. Even on a small scale. E3 began with eight people and wound up impacting one in ten US children. So, let’s think big.
Thanks for all you do,
Kevin
