5: Collaboration
Collaborate across organizational and political boundaries. Other Information:
Developing New Civic Spaces with Strategic Doing -- To promote innovation, we need new habits to think and act together. In
region after region, the central challenge involves moving people out of old patterns of thought and behavior. The best way
to move past these old traps is to form new collaborations across organizational and political boundaries. The irony is, of
course, that these boundaries are, for the most part, no longer boundaries at all. In a world of global competition and the
Internet, traditional boundaries -- boundaries often drawn decades ago -- simply limit our thinking of what is possible. When
you think about it, submitting our thinking to these boundaries doesn't make much sense. It's a little like driving your car
by looking in the rear view mirror. In crossing our traditional organizational and political boundaries, we face some very
practical problems, though. Again, it may sound simple, but it is not easy. As a first matter, we often do not have a habit
of coming together on a regular basis to explore the big opportunities of transformation. A trusted convener may be hard to
find. Or, simply locating a place where people feel comfortable poses problems. More typically, though, we often do not know
how to act. We do not behave toward each other in ways that build trust and mutual respect. Incivility emerges in a wide range
of behaviors. People withhold information from each other. People may shout at each other. People may simply ignore each other.
Recall a time when you left a civic or public meeting angry or frustrated. Now think about the behaviors (not the people)
that gave rise to your frustration. Chances are, at the core, someone's incivility pushed you over the edge. The irony, of
course, is that we do not have to put up with incivility. We can agree to behave toward each other in ways that build trust
and mutual respect. We can agree to follow some simple rules. It's not hard. Libraries do it every day.
Objective(s):
|
