Coalitions

The beauty of our coalition work is that we get to work with people. The people we work with are partners, colleagues and often become dear friends. We learn from them, we learn about them and we treasure the gift of them in our lives.

n our coalition and team work, we can get caught up doing things that need to be done without considering whether we need to be the one doing them or not. We may have a meeting or a project with a long list of tasks and a short list of people to do them.

This time of year has the potential to be both wonderful and overwhelming. We have the opportunity to connect, reflect and celebrate as well as attempt to finish our remaining goals, convene our coalitions at least one more time and finish the year well. When our to-do list gets longer than ever and we struggle

When we are engaging coalition partners, workgroups or teams, we usually want them to actively participate in our meetings. Depending upon the meeting, the level of trust, comfortability of the partners and previous experiences in the meetings, participants will engage at varying levels. One of the ways to garner continued engagement in meetings is to

One of the signs of a functional and trusting group is that you can openly disagree with one another when you meet together. While this is not always easy and conflict can be unsettling, when you are able to disagree agreeably, you often make better and more thoughtful decisions. This is particularly applicable when you

In coalition meetings, we are great at informing, networking and discussing topics. Depending upon the group, sometimes, we are also great at actively working on projects, making progress toward our most important priorities and even collaborating with others. One of the areas that can be particularly challenging in any meeting – or group – is

When we bring diverse partners together to work toward a common cause, one of the benefits of the gathering is to garner multiple perspectives on a topic, issue or project. While this may seem like an easy thing to do, we have to provide an atmosphere where participants feel comfortable sharing their viewpoints even if

When we are hosting coalition and workgroup meetings, we want people to come ready to share their perspectives and contribute to the common cause. Although we may not always explicitly say it, we want to create an atmosphere of trust so that people are willing to engage and share their best. In order to do

Whether we realize it or not, we all come to meetings with expectations of others. If we have previously met with a particular group, our past experiences influence our current or future expectations. Even if this is a new meeting or a new group of people, we still bring expectations based on previous experiences and

In every meeting, you will have people who are more inclined to talk, share and provide their perspective or feedback and you will have others who listen more and talk less. If we have been meeting with a group for a long time, we develop a group culture where we may expect our colleagues to