COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION FOR SHARED PROSPERITY, EQUITY & SUSTAINABILITY
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COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Introduction to Collaborative Innovation
This one-day introductory workshop is designed to build your capacity to lead multi-stakeholder collaboration for systems change. It's designed for changemakers, leaders, facilitators, collective impact backbone staff, and consultants working on vexing problems that can only be addressed using a collaborative approach. We’ll introduce the key elements of Collaborative Innovation--a process model and an integrated set of concrete tools to effectively lead powerful change with multi-stakeholder, multi-sector collaborations.
This workshop is a spicy, engaging, and fast-paced introduction focused on the “four agendas” of collaborative innovation that build momentum, accountability, and real meaningful change:
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Connecting: How to build trusting connections across the many boundaries among us and connect a powerful change system
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Aligning: How to align around a clear and deeply shared intent for your work together
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Learning: How to understand the larger system and the human experience within it
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Making: How to develop and test concrete and strategic solutions and interventions and take them to scale
This workshop will support you to:
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Identify the critical elements of successful multi-stakeholder collaborations fueled by real alignment, engagement, and momentum
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Convene diverse networks more confidently across organizational, sectoral, cultural, and political boundaries
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Experience a more interactive and engaging approach to collaboration that meaningfully engages whole people
You will leave this workshop with increased competence in:
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Working more confidently at the highest levels of stakeholder engagement: Collaboration and Co-creation;
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Advancing the Four Agendas in Collaborative Innovation: Aligning, Connecting, Learning, and Making;
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Aligning diverse interests around a powerful shared intent;
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Helping stakeholders develop both a systemic understanding of the challenge and an empathetic view into the human experience within that system; and
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Developing a powerful set of ideas, building them into working prototypes and testing them in the real world
Best suited for: Individuals and teams who are directly leading multi-stakeholder systems change collaboratives and networks, and consultants who support these leaders.
Session inputs: None required
In Person Course
Registration cost: $750 standard registration; $475 for community organizations
Course length: 1 day, 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Registration cost: $475
Course length: Three, three-hour sessions
Trainers: Russ Gaskin, Heather Equinoss, Melissa Darnell, Issac Carter, Luzette Jaimes
Collaborative Innovation Essentials
This is our intensive core course based on the collaborative innovation methodology, covering critical success factors, key patterns, and the essential tools we use to build alignment and progress toward audacious goals. In this hands-on course, you'll learn the core Collaborative Innovation methods that have driven powerful changes in industries and communities around the world. Centered around your own initiative or a challenge that you care about, you'll apply these methods in real time, making progress on your project while building your capacity to lead collaborative change.
This workshop will support you to:
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Design and lead multi-stakeholder collaborations fueled by real alignment, engagement, and momentum
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Lead more confidently through the fear and uncertainty of leading complex change across ideological and cultural boundaries
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Support co-design and shared ownership of effective systems change strategy
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Help groups navigate the confusion and polarization that shows up when engaging diverse constituents
You will leave this workshop with increased effectiveness and skill in:
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Establishing the conditions for powerful collaboration
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Aligning diverse interests around a powerful shared goal
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Mapping a shared understanding of system dynamics
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Helping stakeholders develop real empathy for everyone affected by the work
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Identifying the critical shifts that need to happen in order to realize your goal
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Developing a powerful set of ideas, build them into working prototypes and test them in the real world
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Adopting an inclusive and culturally integrative approach to systems change
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Identifying and leveraging 6 common patterns in collaboration
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Scaling up the work and the impact
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Building a shared learning environment
People who attend this course tend to have these types of questions:
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How do I get started in building a systems change collaborative?
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Whom do I need to engage as I move forward, and when (and how)?
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How do I get people to volunteer their time for this work when they’re all so busy?
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How am I going to get these people to agree to do something meaningful together, and actually do it?
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How do I communicate the value of collaboration to people who don’t seem to value it?
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How do we get to action, but also take time to build relationships and deepen our learning?
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How do I deal with counterproductive conflict and difficult human dynamics?
During our optional “no-host” evening meal, we'll share more stories and learning with one another about how to lead the change that our world needs. Building a network of dynamic leaders from across sectors to support your work over time is just one of the many benefits of participation in this course.
Best suited for: Individuals and teams who are directly leading multi-stakeholder systems change collaboratives and networks, and consultants who support these leaders.
Session inputs: None required
Registration cost: $1,500 standard registration; $950 for community organizations (Need financial support to attend? Please get in touch with us.)
Course length: 2 days, 8:30 AM – 5 PM
Trainers: Russ Gaskin, Heather Equinoss, Melissa Darnell, Issac Carter, Luzette Jaimes
Facilitating Collaborative Innovation (1.5 days)
This is our highly experiential workshop covering an integrative and powerful approach to leading collaboration. It focuses on the nuts-and-bolts planning, facilitation, and leadership practices to help diverse groups move from goal setting to advancing real work together, building engagement and momentum over time. We combine mini-lectures with applied facilitation in real situations, covering both virtual and in-person collaboration. We also use real facilitation challenges faced by participants to learn and apply methods for moving through conflict, confusion, and uncertainty in groups.
This workshop will support you to:
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Combine the best of leadership and collaboration to lead change more powerfully
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Lead more effectively through confusion and avoid conversations that run in circles
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Set and work with others from a clear shared intent
You will leave this workshop with increased effectiveness and skill in:
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Setting an intentional agenda
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Setting the context, space, and pace at the beginning of a meeting
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Establishing a culture of accountability
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Shaping the conversation and giving direction during and between meetings
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Creating a narrative for the group that builds momentum
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Moving from discussion and insight to real work products
People who attend this course tend to have these types of questions:
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How do I build and sustain momentum and engagement when people aren’t showing up regularly?
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How do I get people to work together effectively when their interests and priorities are so apparently divergent?
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How can we keep things moving and not get stuck in analysis paralysis?
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How do I deal with seemingly counterproductive conflict and difficult human dynamics?
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How can I get leaders to stop rushing to action?
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How do I get around people trying to make perfect solutions or get things exactly right?
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How do we deal with power, hierarchy, and this belief that some people have the right answer?
Best suited for: Individuals and teams who are facilitating networks and collaboratives working on systems change initiatives, including consultants, professional facilitators, and staff of backbone organizations.
Session inputs: None required
In Person Course
Registration cost: $1,150 standard registration; $725 for community organizations
Course length: 1.5 days, 8:45 AM – 5:00 PM; 8:45 AM – 1:00 PM
Registration cost: $700
Course length: Four, 3.5-hour sessions
Trainers: Russ Gaskin, Heather Equinoss, Melissa Darnell, Issac Carter, Luzette Jaimes
Championing Systems Change (1 day)
In this workshop, specially designed for funders and senior leaders, you’ll develop your unique role as a champion of systems change initiatives. The course focuses on the unique pressures that sponsors of systems change work face between their own stakeholders and the "change system" they are helping to catalyze and support.
In this course, we share stories and examples from actual systems change initiatives, both successful and unsuccessful, to help you more deeply understand the kind of commitment, clarity, and resources it takes to lead effective systems change.
This workshop will support you to:
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Understand the key success factors, resource needs, and risks in multi-stakeholder collaboration so you can more confidentially invest both financially and reputationally in the work
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Effectively manage the creative tension between your institution’s needs and goals and those of other stakeholders
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Truly support those most impacted by the system to take leadership in changing it
You will leave this workshop with increased effectiveness and skill in:
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Shaping a powerful shared intent to build collective ownership and fuel the work
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Creating the conditions to foster success systems change initiatives
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Appropriately resourcing systems change initiatives
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Supporting effective assessment of the progress, dynamics, and work of a collaborative
Eligibility: Senior system and funders interested in supporting systems change collaboratives.
Session inputs: None required.
In Person Course
Registration cost: $950 standard registration; $600 for community organizations organizations
Course length: 1 day, 8:45 AM – 5 PM
Registration cost: $700
Course length: Three, 3-hour sessions
Trainers: Russ Gaskin, Heather Equinoss, Melissa Darnell, Luzette Jaimes, Issac Carter
Leading with Purpose and Awareness (1 day)
Some of the most difficult work in leading collaboration and systems change is the work that happens internally to allow us to lead with purpose, awareness, intention, and courage. This intensive workshop provides a safe and courageous space to dive deep into your deepest aspirations, biases, fears, and assumptions about leading audacious and risky systems change work effectively.
This workshop will support you to:
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Develop awareness of what’s happening at multiple levels of the system in which you’re leading, from interpersonally to very large systems
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Develop and work more consistently from a clear intent
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Productively and creatively leverage the hidden benefits of fear, conflict, resistance, and failure
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Become more comfortable with discomfort, fear, and anxiety that can arise when we lead complex, high-risk endeavors
You will leave this workshop with increased effectiveness and skill in:
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Tracking what’s happening at multiple levels of system (including internally in your own mind and body) and increasing your range of choice about how to respond
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Developing more effective ways of scanning for information, becoming aware of what you’re sensing, developing those sensations into full awareness, making inferences and meaning from awareness, and moving to action
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Connecting yourself to your greatest purpose and intent
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Centering and grounding yourself
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Working through uncertainty and complexity day-to-day
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Caring for yourself and others with compassion and empathy
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A team of 2 peers from different organizations to support your ongoing learning and leadership
Best suited for: Individuals and teams who are directly leading multi-stakeholder systems change collaboratives and networks, and consultants who support these leaders.
Session inputs: None required.
Registration cost: $1,500 standard registration; $950 for community organizations (Need financial support to attend? Please get in touch with us.)
Course length: 2 days, 8:45 AM – 5 PM
Trainers: Russ Gaskin, Heather Equinoss
Leveraging Conflict for Innovation (1.5 days)
To lead complex change across cultural, sectoral, and functional boundaries, we need to foster genuine alignment, not just superficial compliance, among diverse stakeholders. This need requires that we find effective and reliable ways to draw on the diverse values and experiences of all stakeholders to form a greater, more integrated view of the needs and interests at play and the problems and the opportunities we face.
In this session, you will experience and learn methods for seeing, mapping and leveraging the fundamental differences among stakeholders’ values in order to convert conflict and polarization into authentic alignment and productive collaboration. By providing a practical framework and tool for addressing the underlying fears, values, and aspirations at play in any situation, this approach lays a foundation for success in working on even the most polarizing challenges.
This workshop will support you to:
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Build genuine trust and collaboration among people who must work together but often don’t even like each other
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Transcend conflict and help others see and value the wisdom in ”conflicting” perspectives
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Anticipate and get ahead of conflicts and limited solutions by seeing more of the whole picture
You will leave this workshop with increased effectiveness and skill in:
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Seeing the underlying values driving stakeholders' motivations, fears, and behaviors
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Mapping these value dynamics to reveal the sources of unproductive conflict and polarization
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Clearly understanding and describing what polarities are and how they work in organizations
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Distinguishing "problems to solve" from "polarities to leverage"
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Helping groups get unstuck from conflict and polarization
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Reframing fear and resistance in a more positive and constructive light using the polarity lens
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Foster collaboration at the level of values, resulting in much more resilient solutions
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A team of 3 peers from different organizations to support your ongoing learning and leadership
Best suited for: Individuals and teams who are directly leading multi-stakeholder systems change collaboratives and networks, and consultants who support these leaders.
Session inputs: None required; We offer an optional organizational or team polarity assessment to identify key polarities to work with during the training (if desired)
Registration cost: $1,150 standard registration; $725 for community organizations (Need financial support to attend? Please get in touch with us.)
Course length: 1.5 days, 8:45 AM – 5 PM; 8:45 AM – 1:00 PM
Trainers: Russ Gaskin, Luzette Jaimes, Heather Equinoss
CLINICS
Case Clinic for Collective Action
Through 90-minute monthly online case clinics, we bring the classroom to where the work is happening in order to increase leaders' capacity to catalyze and shepherd effective collective action. On each clinic call, a team working with multi-stakeholder partnerships presents their work and goals and shares a key barrier or challenge they are facing. We then crowdsource reflection questions from the other participants and then solicit ideas from them. Then CoCreative staff member offer insights, expertise, example, and tools to help the team with their challenge and provide tools and frameworks on facilitation, stakeholder engagement, and system change strategy.
Action Lab: Building Collaborations for Systems Change
Through a 3-day, semi-structured clinic, we work deeply with teams to advance their collaborative system change initiatives. Both the content and format of action labs are adapted in real time to the needs of participants. Action Lab outcomes include:
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Working more confidently and competently at the highest levels of stakeholder engagement: Collaboration and Co-creation;
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Building effective, resilient, and action-oriented change systems;
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Clarifying your unique role in the change system and learning how to most effectively leverage that role;
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Understanding of critical success factors in collaborative systems change and methods for achieving them;
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Aligning diverse interests around a powerful shared intent;
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Helping stakeholders develop both a systemic understanding of the challenge and an empathetic view into the human experience within that system;
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Developing a powerful set of ideas, building them into working prototypes, and testing them in the real world;
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Practicing wellbeing, self-care, and decompression to support success over time.