When we experience relationship challenges, we often want them to be fixed immediately. While we can practice the three recommendations from last week’s post that help us repair a relationship, the process of restoring a relationship can take more time.

One of the most rewarding things about coalition work is developing, growing and sustaining relationships. If we are honest, relationships can also be challenging (some more than others!) 🙂 When we work with diverse relationships and engage with people who

We have all kinds of encouragement to build relationships from our boards, funders and coalition supporters. Occasionally, we will hear that we should “sustain” or “maintain” relationships. While both of these are important, we also need to talk about what

Coalition work is all about relationships. Although we may have the name of an “organization” listed as our member or partner, we do not work with an organization. In coalition relationships, just like any other relationship, we need to spend

We are all on a journey. Whether you have been leading coalitions, teams or partnerships for a few weeks or 20+ years, you have developed practices, routines and rituals that set expectations for participation and engagement. If you have been

Whenever we develop a workplan or a coalition strategic plan, focusing on action and implementation is easy but finding time for reflection is difficult. Although we may include evaluation, many times it becomes a “check the box” type of activity.

As coalition leaders, we can easily spend all of our time on meetings, projects, reports, plans, budgets and addressing other people’s needs that we rarely find any time to pause, reflect or rest. And we definitely do not have time

In our coalition work and the rest of our lives, our culture supports constant productivity but doesn’t praise or support rest (or play). When we are constantly focused on checking one more thing off of our to-do list and not

You may have facilitated a fantastic online meeting where you engaged participants, made important decisions and made progress on your most important projects; however, the real test of a “good” meeting happens after the meeting is over. Once you have

If we schedule every meeting for an hour and we fill up that time with conversation, we may never have a meaningful break and can easily experience meeting fatigue. In my experience, most of my colleagues and coalition members want

As we continue to host online meetings, we have new opportunities to engage our participants utilizing both “old” and new “tools.” Not every tool is a good fit for every meeting. Considering the purpose and the participants, use these tools

As we facilitate online meetings, it can be difficult to engage our participants and keep them engaged (especially if it is a particularly long meeting!). One of the strategies that has helped participants stay engaged is to call on people