If you had a chance to participate in one of my recent Masterclasses, you will know that we spent a lot of time on the importance of showing empathy and compassion. Everyone in our “zoom squares” has a story. We never know what may be happening in the lives of our coalition members. They may […]
Coalition Engagement Skill #7: Show empathy Read More »
Engaging coalitions, partnerships, workgroups and teams is particularly challenging right now. Most meetings are still occurring virtually and “zoom” fatigue is real. When only a few people show their video and the energy is low, it is really difficult to effectively engage participants. As a coalition leader, you are responsible for modeling and encouraging positive
Coalition Engagement Skill #6: Demonstrate energy and enthusiasm Read More »
One of the most important roles for a coalition leader to play is that of a “master facilitator.” Although you may think you need to be the one to “do” everything, if you are really going to be able to achieve more together than you can on your own, facilitate conversations and connections. Join me
Coalition Engagement Skill #5: Facilitate conversations and connections Read More »
Do you know what only you can do as a coalition leader? Do your coalition members know their roles and how they “fit” in the coalition? As a coalition leader, it is easy to “assume” that everyone knows what role(s) they are playing as part of the coalition. You may also have different expectations for
Coalition Engagement Skill #4: Clarify meaningful roles and responsibilities Read More »
In order to engage coalition members, you have to know them. What are their interests? Where are their passions? Do they have capacity to participate in your work groups or teams? The more you can understand your coalition members and what is important to them, the better you can engage them in the coalition. It
Coalition Engagement Skill #3: Know your members’ interests and capacity Read More »
Since coalition work involves working with people, there will always be conflict. 🙂 Conflict can be helpful, healthy and can aid the coalition in making better collective decisions. Unresolved conflict can be very destructive to a coalition and can erode trust and engagement. Conflict may be related to coalition decision-making, priority setting or among member
Partnership Pitfall #10: Unresolved conflict Read More »
As I mentioned last week, every group has dominators and quiet voices. As important as it is to pull out quiet voices, it’s also very important to address the dominators with grace. They are dominators for a reason. They may be particularly passionate about a topic, highly extroverted, very engaged and wanting to contribute or
Facilitation: Addressing dominators with grace Read More »
Every group has dominators as well quiet voices, and as a facilitator, it is important for you to find ways to pull out quiet voices. This isn’t always easy! There may be power dynamics (position, gender, race, education and more), new members who aren’t yet comfortable sharing their perspective, introverted members who would rather not
Facilitation: Pulling out quiet voices Read More »
If you have been meeting with one of your teams, workgroups or committees for a while, there is a good chance the group has become weary and may also be experiencing burnout. This can be true even if you have had some great successes as a group! If you are having lower attendance than usual,
Facilitation: Group that is weary and experiencing burnout Read More »
It’s amazing how much competition is possible even among groups and organizations that have very similar helping-oriented missions. When I first started working in public health, I was surprised to find many organizations “competing” with one another providing similar health-related interventions to similar populations. Sometimes organizations didn’t realize or think they were competing with others
Facilitation: Group that has competition among members Read More »