Social Value Investing: A Management Framework For Effective Partnerships

Cross-sector partnerships are well suited for addressing complex societal challenges, but only if the people leading them are highly effective in coordinating their team’s efforts across partnering organizations.¹ In many of the partnerships we discuss in this book, collaborations work in similar ways. Partners function as a network comprised of decentralized teams, each with diverse abilities, expertise, and responsibilities. Each leader is empowered to manage his or her team without much interference from the other partners, which allows leaders to do what they do best—operate their organizations based on the knowledge and insights they are uniquely positioned to provide. Synchronizing distinct organizations and teams in a decentralized manner presents one of the more complex and difficult tasks when building effective partnerships.² This chapter highlights common observations and important characteristics of how teams and leaders align their efforts and focus on shared goals.³

Decentralized team management under a shared decision-making authority is relatively common in the business world.4 This structure often characterizes the relationship between a parent company and its subsidiaries, and it is representative of a multiproduct or multiservice corporation operating distinct business divisions. In these cases, the lines of authority and communication between an organization’s governance, executive, and management teams are usually clear, as are relative degrees of operational independence.⁵ Effective decentralization requires shared authority for decision making between these different levels of leadership, as well as an ability for teams to take on new or unfamiliar responsibilities in an operating environment that is not overly restrictive.⁶

There are many benefits to this approach, which also apply to teams in a cross-sector partnership. Due to its resulting autonomy, decentralization fosters individual team motivation and creativity.⁷ It allows for large, independent groups to focus multiple and diverse perspectives toward a common challenge. The structure provides for flexibility in how teams problem solve, and for distinct approaches to idea development.⁸ Many of these advantages were apparent in our case example (see chapter 5). Leaders from across sectors inspired their teams to successfully partner around common goals and visions to improve New York City’s parks. This was even the case internally within Central Park, where Doug Blonsky implemented an innovative Zone Management System. Under Blonsky’s leadership, the Central Park Conservancy decentralized park maintenance systematically across forty-nine teams, each with the necessary experience, skills, and autonomy to manage and restore the park successfully.⁹

In our examples of cross-sector partnerships, we find that leaders exhibit similar characteristics across management styles. These characteristics are prerequisites for highly successful partnership building,¹⁰ and they include vision, drive, integrity, admirable ambition, emotional intelligence, and empathy.¹¹ These all contribute to a leader’s predisposition to collaborate with others.¹² Leaders who display this combination of characteristics are well suited to motivate their teams, to work well across partnering teams and with other leaders, and to understand key resource and operational constraints—and benefits—of different kinds of organizations.¹³ As successful partnership builders, they combine these leadership characteristics with an awareness of their team’s needs, the patience and perspective needed to understand partnering teams’ dynamics, and the resilience required to maintain their team’s momentum toward a partnership’s goals.¹⁴

Leaders of effective partnerships continually inspire their team to carry the partnership forward, regardless of difficulties or challenges.15 They must motivate buy-in throughout their entire organization, just as Betsy Rogers and Gordon Davis did in the case of Central Park. Leaders must communicate their vision internally and externally and effectively engage community stakeholders. In addition, they must establish measurable outcomes, be willing to learn and modify strategies, and set and follow realistic expectations for their teams and themselves.

These activities and leadership qualities are discussed in further detail throughout this chapter. The analysis begins by describing roles and resources that different kinds of organizations and their leaders can contribute to a partnership. The chapter then outlines five types of leadership skills that may be represented by the leaders in a partnership, as well as a set of programmatic leadership experiences relevant for effective collaboration. Next is a discussion of core group identities of a team and why leaders must know and understand them. Finally, the chapter explains how leaders can motivate their teams and maintain a partnership’s momentum. This chapter is not meant to serve as an assessment tool for organizational capacity, impact, or individual leadership—many of those exist already.¹⁶ Rather, it provides broad guidance on important leadership perspectives in a decentralized team environment, and some strategies necessary for sharing success across organizations in a partnership.

chapter 4 described the types of organizations that engage in cross-sector partnerships and the roles they typically assume. Foundations, government agencies, or private sector entities often serve as donors or investors in a partnership. In the Central Park and High Line cases, the funders were both private donors, such as John Paulson, and decision makers at government agencies, such as the New York City Parks Department and the Mayor’s Office. Contractors, NGOs, or services firms often serve as a partnership’s implementers. This included the Central Park Conservancy as well as the Friends of the High Line described in chapter 5. Each organization was founded to improve the parks and coordinate development activities, and their leaders worked hand in hand with funders, going far beyond a standard contractual or grantee relationship. Finally, partnerships have groups of stakeholders—such as the residents and neighborhood associations surrounding each of the parks—around which a partnership is focused or where a partnership’s efforts are invested.

Leaders in the public sector usually create legal and policy conditions necessary for long-term systems or community change, and the government agencies they operate have the power to regulate markets and market actors.17 Government agencies at any level can draw on relatively large-scale budgets, and their leaders can use prestige or power to attract attention to drive progress in a cross-sector partnership.¹⁸ These leaders also engage in diplomacy and the development of international trade agreements that may be applicable when building multinational partnerships. Many government agencies have access to significant amounts of data that may be relevant for partnerships ranging from the community level to the global arena. Furthermore, each branch of government plays a role in enforcing policy change or altering legal frameworks, which has the potential to enhance other organizations’ ability to serve the public good.

In the private sector, leaders can contribute to cross-sector partnerships in a wide variety of ways. They may provide business acumen or access to physical capital necessary to achieve the goals of a partnership.19 These leaders have valuable experience focusing on product or service innovation and customer satisfaction and retention. Private sector leaders are uniquely positioned to nurture and sustain economic markets related to their business practices.²⁰ This can create demand for jobs, support employment growth throughout related value chains, and help build individual and community wealth. The private sector also invests in significant research and development, which may be relevant to a partnership’s goals. However, the resulting knowledge or technology usually is limited to the products or services the company produces and may be locked up through intellectual property protections.²¹

Leaders of philanthropic organizations, such as foundations or grant-makers, have experience thinking strategically about effective ways to work with multiple stakeholders to improve social conditions.²² They can direct patient (or long-term) capital to a partnership, or their assets can serve as first-loss capital for a partnership’s coinvestment. In doing so, philanthropic capital can offset short-term risk and encourage long-term private sector investment that might not otherwise occur.²³ Furthermore, the leaders of foundations face fewer external forces of accountability (they have no direct shareholders or public elections) and can more easily attempt efforts that have a high probability of failure.²⁴ Although most foundations have yet to tap into the full suite of financial tools available to them (see the examples outlined in chapter 10), their structure affords important flexibility for cross-sector partnerships.

The heads of community-based nonprofits, such as food banks or religious organizations, typically have significant on-the-ground experience in a given area or region. Due to the nature of their work, these leaders build and maintain community relationships beyond those of less locally focused leaders.²⁵ Their organizations can be effective at service delivery, and they often innovate to accomplish significant social good with little or restricted funding. These organizations and their leaders have to be flexible to respond quickly to changing community needs and resources. Leaders of these organizations tend to have a deep understanding of local challenges, an awareness of important historical context, and know what cultural nuances must be taken into account so that a partnership’s investments make a lasting difference.²⁶

Academic and research organizations present their own set of strengths and capabilities.²⁷ Many are well-established institutions, with leaders focused on long-term knowledge development and idea dissemination. These organizations might partner with others, such as think tanks or foundations, to help develop institutional capacity for a given field or practice.²⁸ Universities and community colleges are engaged in workforce training and readiness through their degree and vocational programs, and are well equipped to develop new and useful technology for society and effectively transfer that technology externally so that it may be scaled to serve the needs of many.²⁹

Leaders work more effectively with their counterparts in decentralized teams when they can identify and understand the leadership skills possessed by their peers. Our examples of successful partnerships are run by teams with leaders who have diverse backgrounds, experiences, and expertise.30 Research on what makes a good leader, on the quality of leadership, and on effective team management is expansive, and this chapter does not summarize or replicate that work.³¹ However, the leadership skills observed in our examples can be distilled into five categories, which are outlined in this section. Leaders with skills in each of these areas also benefit from corresponding skills-based capital,³² which describes associated leadership strengths they can draw from to contribute to the success of a partnership.³³

Intellectual leadership skills are typically associated with leaders who have an innate or highly developed ability to understand important or complex ideas or concepts.³⁴ These leaders draw on or leverage intellectual or knowledge-based capital through their deep awareness, expertise, or experience regarding a specific issue area, system, or process innovation. They also may be viewed as thought leaders in a field and may have the ability to influence the views of others. In the High Line example from our New York City parks case, John Alschuler, the nationally known and well-regarded real estate expert, provided critical guidance and insights on how to establish the Friends of the High Line partnership. Not only did he advise on the complex structuring of the initiative, he also helped to communicate the vision and worked with community representatives, such as the newly elected mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Representative leadership skills are exhibited by leaders who are effective at representing the needs or preferences of a specific constituency or group of individuals.35 They may leverage political capital through their role, or through access to local, state, or national individuals who are elected, hired, or appointed to positions that can influence or better inform policy, regulation, or management of public resources.³⁶ In the Central Park case, one of New York City mayor Edward Koch’s important leadership decisions was to appoint Gordon Davis as head of the Department of Parks and Recreation. Koch gave Davis key direction: focus on the city’s and the park’s financial sustainability through your role as a steward for the public. In his appointed position, Davis built a multidimensional strategy focused on collaboration and partnerships that led to significant success for Central Park.

Transactional leadership skills are associated with leaders who are effective at negotiating, especially when bargaining for or structuring access to resources for a partnership.³⁷ These leaders may have control or influence over significant financial capital that can be directed toward or coordinated for a partnership’s goals, or they may bring a keen understanding of or access to key markets. Consistent across both New York parks cases was the importance of external or private funding to support each park’s partnerships. In the case of the High Line, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s experience, leadership, and relationships helped inspire significant financial contributions. This leadership continued through the final phases of construction and supported the establishment of an endowment (funding more than 90 percent of the park’s annual operating budget).³⁸

Inspirational leadership skills are found in leaders who inspire trust and action across their teams, partners, or groups of stakeholders.39 These leaders often possess significant social capital, such as a deep reach into a community, or a broad reach between communities, through traditional or innovative networks.⁴⁰ These leaders have well-regarded reputations and may be considered a reliable voice for their peers.⁴¹ This was obvious in the case of Betsy Rogers, who was an effective and inspirational leader for the Central Park efforts. Through her vision and demonstrated passion, she was entrusted by the city and its residents to steward resources in support of critical improvements to the park.

Organizational leadership skills are exhibited by leaders who understand processes that better coordinate physical or human capital, or sequence planning and activities toward common partnership goals.⁴² These leaders can activate or access significant operational or infrastructure resources at local, regional, or national scales, and may have expertise in logistics, information systems, strategic planning, or facilities management, for example.⁴³ This quality was apparent in the leadership efforts of Doug Blonsky in establishment of the Conservancy’s Institute for Urban Parks.⁴⁴ He was the first executive to manage both the Conservancy and the City Parks Department staff, which required him to establish a unified set of standard operating procedures and to align the efforts of multiple teams, organizations, and departments around a common vision.

Planning strategies for developing cross-sector partnerships, including a theory of change model to outline desired outcomes from a collaboration, are discussed in chapter 4. The activities portion of that model describes what actions partners undertake to produce intended outputs in support of the partnership’s goals. Partners will have varying degrees of experience conducting different types of programmatic activities. Therefore, leaders working in decentralized teams will benefit from understanding the scope and types of experiences represented by their counterparts. The following is a typology for identifying and categorizing experience sets relevant to partnerships discussed in this book. This typology was developed by, and is adapted from, a joint McKinsey & Company and Annie E. Casey Foundation analysis on best practices for advancing social impact programs.⁴⁵

Knowledge Development.⁴⁶ This may include experience with “discovering, developing, interpreting, or sharing” new information or data to solve challenges.⁴⁷ Knowledge development activities may seek to identify root, underlying causes of a challenge, or improve existing methodologies for scientific research or data interpretation related to the goals of the partnership.⁴⁸

In the case of Central Park, the effort began with a commissioned study of the park’s management in 1974, known as the Savas Report.⁴⁹ The knowledge developed through this study translated into key management recommendations, and partnerships, necessary for the future prosperity of the park.

Policy Change and Implementation. This may include experience with activities that promote or resist “a change in government, multi-lateral, or corporate policy”⁵⁰ or regulation.⁵¹ Partnership activity may focus on early stage engagement, such as the clear articulation of the implications of a proposed policy change, or may support grassroots campaigns, lobbying efforts, or litigation on the subject matter.⁵²

As we saw with New York City’s High Line, the partnership benefited significantly by working with developers and city teams to establish new zoning regulations. The policies led to financing for the High Line Improvement Fund, which supported capital costs for construction and led to new affordable housing and education programs in the area. Former New York City planning director Amanda Burden was able to bring city officials and Friends of the High Line leadership together in a collaborative way to solve some very complex and contentious zoning issues.

Platforms and Enabling Systems.⁵³ This may include experience working with organizations or government bodies to create common standards, networks, or physical infrastructure.⁵⁴ Examples of these activities may be partnerships that develop a significant public works initiative, the creation of requirements or specifications for a new technical service or technology, or some other advancement or framework that meets the needs or demands of the general public.⁵⁵

Organizational and Individual Improvement Programs.⁵⁷ This may include experience working with individuals or organizations to expand their educational or professional capabilities or to encourage behaviors that result in positive gains for society.⁵⁸ Partnerships may support activities ranging from job training and technical assistance at the individual level, to development of new programs or executive training for staff at the organizational level, to community-wide public service campaigns for issues such as neighborhood safety, energy efficiency, or recycling.⁵⁹

Thanks to Doug Blonsky’s leadership, the Central Park Conservancy now offers internships, fellowships, service learning activities, and workforce development training. This is also apparent through the Conservancy’s Institute for Urban Parks and subsequent Certified Urban Park Manager education program, which drew from the expertise of teams at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

Basic Human or Community Services. This may include experience providing new or improved community-based services, or it may be the delivery of basic goods, such as food or medical supplies, “to fulfill unmet needs of constituents.”⁶⁰ This activity may serve broader community enrichment, such as supporting the performing arts or programming at a children’s museum.⁶¹ In any case, a partnership exists to provide or produce some set of outputs where expertise in service or product delivery will be relevant.⁶²

Under Betsy Rogers’s leadership, the Central Park Conservancy restored and created new community services early in the partnership. The Conservancy renovated Central Park’s Sheep Meadow, Wollman Rink, Cherry Hill, and Belvedere Castle—providing important cultural and recreational services to the community.

Cross-sector partnerships may include activities falling outside of this list; however, these categories describe a range of typical core experiential sets relevant across teams and leaders. A given leader’s knowledge and familiarity will vary widely across these activity groups. Therefore, other team leaders in a partnership should be equipped to identify critical experience gaps and supplement their teams accordingly.

Effective leaders know how to look outward across a partnership to understand the advantages other partnering organizations can provide. They also know what skills and experiences their counterparts can contribute to complement their own. But leaders must also look inward at their own teams and understand what drives and motivates team member commitment to a partnership’s success.63

We saw this with the development of the Central Park Conservancy partnership under the leadership of Betsy Rogers. Rogers’s management style allowed for a hands-on approach to her team’s activities. As a self-described “zealous nut” about the park, it helped that she worked tirelessly to strengthen its mission and refine its programs.⁶⁴ Her focus on park maintenance and the creation of new restorative processes resulted in an almost ritualistic pride among her team. She tapped into her staff’s loyalty—to both herself and the park—to inspire previously unaccomplished advances in the park’s complex operations. Rogers articulated a new vision for the park’s future, establishing new and exciting values for the organization and its employees. Finally, Rogers was able to build meaningful shared experiences for her team members—not only through her management style but also by celebrating critical fund-raising successes, lauding visible improvements, and highlighting the efforts of her team.

Each of these examples represents different ways that Rogers built and tapped into her team’s underlying core identities. Described in Daniel Shapiro’s Negotiating the Nonnegotiable, core identities represent the “spectrum of characteristics that define you as an individual or as a group.”⁶⁵ Understanding how to develop and nurture these core team identities enables leaders to support their team’s efforts in ways that are critically important. It allows leaders to better motivate their teams, reassure them when facing challenges, or avoid conflict between members. It can provide context for when leaders should help teams emphasize certain identities over others. And it can assist leaders in situations where clashing cultures or differing norms between partner organizations are slowing progress toward goals.

Beliefs make up the collection of “convictions, principles,” or ethics held by all members of the team that provide broad behavioral guidance.66 Team beliefs may be articulated in a charter, codified in an organizing document or mission statement, or described as a set of philosophies framed and displayed on a wall.

Rituals are a team’s “meaningful customs” or repetitive acts. This could include celebration of an individual milestone reached, welcoming of a new team member, or recognizing significant progression toward a goal.⁶⁷ This could be a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a party in someone’s honor, traditions of eating lunch together, or how a team ends their workday together.

Loyalties are dedications, or strong senses of commitment. They could be toward the organization, the team itself, other members of the team, a team leader, or a collaborative partnership. Loyalties also can extend to a particular idea, goal, or purpose, or to an organization’s brand identity.⁶⁸

Values are a team’s ideals, such as integrity, honesty, justice, or freedom. They describe or articulate what a team believes is worth holding in high regard. Values often represent a set of standards the team hopes to uphold through its actions or choices, such as ethical conduct, providing good customer service, or excellence in a work product.

Shared emotional experiences are “events, positive or negative,” that affect a team’s identity. This could include the resignation of a critical team member or team leader, the resolution or accomplishment of a team’s goal or purpose, or a particularly difficult or uncertain time in the group’s existence. These experiences contribute to a sense of common history or camaraderie among group members.⁶⁹

Recognizing that partnerships inherently bring about some kind of change or inflection affecting an organization’s culture, leaders must constantly reinforce the goals, vision, and efforts related to the partnership’s intended outcomes.⁷¹ Decentralized team leadership is complex; it requires significant effort in team design, in team member recruitment, in building and maintaining team momentum, and in anchoring successes along the way. Achieving a partnership’s outcomes can take a significant amount of time—many months, years, or even longer. Because these processes can be drawn out, leaders across partners must engender team ownership throughout the life cycle of the partnership, especially during incremental progress.

In considering the chapter 5 case, many important aspects of maintaining a partnership’s long-term momentum are apparent throughout the early history of Central Park’s revitalization. When New York City mayor Edward Koch assumed office in 1978, he instilled an important sense of urgency in Gordon Davis, directing him to quickly bring about significant improvements throughout the park system.⁷² Realizing that Central Park may soon suffer further setbacks, Davis recruited Betsy Rogers as the first Central Park Administrator in 1979, and they set out to save park operations from an already shrunken staff and dismal resources. Rogers quickly rallied her team around a newly communicated vision, and she established coalitions of community, government, and private sector support.

At the same time, Davis worked with the government to clear hurdles for expanded park staff by creating new job positions that would qualify for federal job training funds.73 He anchored this progress through an Urban Park Rangers program, which brought in fresh, young, and well-educated individuals to improve park operations.⁷⁴ He and Rogers also made subtle yet noticeable changes to organizational culture, including new uniforms and a customer service–oriented mentality for park employees. Taken together, this all became part of Central Park’s new brand story.

In some cases, this requires leaders to issue a strong call to action, building on independent indicators that a sense of need or urgency exists and is appropriate given the circumstances. In other cases, this can be done by effectively communicating the consequences of not engaging in a partnership (or what will happen if a partnership fails to achieve its goals). In either case, leaders need to address why the particular effort being proposed is essential, and consider its overall compatibility with their team’s core identities.

Leaders assemble team members with sufficient resources and influence to develop and sustain the life cycle of the partnership. They identify advocates whose beliefs align with the partnership’s goals. They also recruit champions with strong loyalties from throughout the organization, ranging from the base up to the board of directors. Leaders must garner support from key external stakeholders, which may include clients or customers, and focus on ways that support can mitigate potential obstacles for the partnership.

Leaders develop a communication plan that builds on team values and articulates a clear image of what is possible in terms of end goals. They provide access to relevant information and engage in open dialogue. It can be difficult to build real commitment unless teams realize what the partnership is intended to accomplish. Staff may need to internalize what success means to them, and how the partnership’s work may or may not affect their role in the organization.

Leaders work with their governance team, such as a board of directors, to eliminate or modify rules or policies that would prohibit the success of the partnership. They work with management to procure technology and the equipment the partnership needs. Similarly, organizations must dedicate space and time to focus on the partnership’s efforts, sometimes through new team rituals, and must consider necessary organizational shifts to support the goals. Finally, leaders encourage an appropriate risk-taking mind-set in testing and proposing changes that benefit the partnership’s goals.⁷⁹

Leaders must plan activities around milestones to illustrate visible and practical progress made by their teams and by individual members. Leaders should work to recognize and reward those who are responsible for reaching milestones, and they can use new or existing team rituals to build shared emotional experiences. Such recognition should champion progress with public statements, appearances, and high energy. In doing so, leaders will more effectively reinforce the progress made during a partnership, and the shortened distance toward its new vision.⁸¹

The progress of partnerships can easily be reversed, particularly when a partnership is still new or if it challenges the previously embedded culture of an organization. Milestones must be anchored, for instance through changes in technology, updates to standard operating procedures, or improvements to organizational structure in support of the partnership’s goals.⁸³ Leaders should consider their team’s values and work to highlight and positively frame changes for team members based on those values. At times, anchoring may require tangible shifts to the organization’s human capital structure: promotions, changes in job descriptions, or new hires.

Partnerships tell a story of how organizations come together to accomplish something new. This story can be one of the most compelling tools a leader has to build and maintain momentum throughout the development of a new or difficult partnership. The story and the shared emotional experiences it reflects reinforce a team’s loyalty to the partnership. It can help team members conceptualize how a shift in operations fits within the culture of the organization itself. Functionally, leaders should include team members formally and informally in the development of the narrative, and consider important brand elements, such as a dedicated logo, color schemes, and marketing for the partnership.

The goals of a partnership describe a new reality, and the brand story conveys how that reality fits with the culture, but leaders must also align a partnership’s mission with their team’s beliefs. Overall, both the new vision and each step throughout the partnership time line must support all aspects of a team’s core identities. Outcomes must lead to higher satisfaction among team members and to a new culture of success built around the overarching narrative of the partnership.

Central Park’s long-term narrative, for example, began with the partnership between New York City and Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, the landscape architects who envisioned a design for the park that led to its opening in 1858.⁸⁶ Every Parks Commissioner and Administrator since then has built on the strength of that foundation, allowing for today’s modern park services, and underscoring every partnership and private donation that continues supporting the park and its success. Doug Blonsky, for example, worked continuously and tirelessly to support the CPC staff over the past thirty-two years, and focused on creating a positive work environment for the entire team during his tenure.⁸⁷

Throughout the stages of partnership engagement, leaders recognize the need to build and nurture a team’s cross-sector identity.88 They do so by defining core mutual beliefs and by developing shared rituals. They also delineate common values across teams, and create shared emotional experiences by instilling a sense of achievement and pride over the quality of the collective work. Finally, leaders cultivate loyalty to the partnership’s vision and to each other. When leaders are effective at doing this, all members of their organization will be positioned to share in the partnership’s success.

Employing an effective decentralized leadership strategy is a challenging process. Sometimes a team lacks specific leadership skills or experiences and may be unable to make up for those deficiencies. Cost and time can be barriers to working across teams representing a multitude of partners.⁸⁹ Some organizations face regulatory restrictions governing their staff size or composition—this is particularly true in certain government situations, where additional human capital may be needed but cannot be hired or contracted due to statute.⁹⁰ Team member or leader attrition, especially during lengthy partnership time lines, can significantly complicate or hinder success.

Decentralized teams in a cross-sector partnership may not be balanced or representative across the five leadership skill sets discussed in this chapter. This is one reason the Central Park Conservancy built and continues to expand a multifaceted training program, codified through detailed program guides, to maintain and upgrade the skills of all team members working in Central Park.⁹¹ However, strengthening teams from within is not always a plausible course of action and depends on the goals and activities of the partnership. Leaders may have to build trusted coalitions outside their senior team members to offset skills gaps or shortcomings. This may add additional stress between executive leadership and senior management, or it may result in an unevenness in contributions between partnering teams at different phases of the partnership.⁹²

Team leaders are responsible for facilitating a partnership’s ongoing success and must commit significant time and energy to the partnership-building process. Leaders must be cognizant of their team’s emotional health, especially if a partnership is causing difficult or stressful experiences. They must model the partnership’s goals or agenda in their actions and public speeches, and when addressing their teams. And they must constantly strive to inspire trust and confidence.

■ Convene leaders representing organizations across sectors that contribute distinct advantages to the partnership, and who exhibit the necessary leadership skills for developing a comprehensive partnership strategy;

■ Coordinate planning with partners who represent diverse and extensive experiences required for the partnership’s theory of change activities, and who possess a range of skills-based capital relevant for accomplishing goals shared across organizations; and

■ Catalyze the collective action of partners with leaders who develop and nurture their team’s core identities, who inspire and guide their teams to actively seek solutions to shared challenges, and who facilitate engagement with additional partners throughout the life cycle of the partnership.

Leading a partnership toward a unified vision of success can be extremely difficult; it is time consuming and requires balancing many factors.⁹⁴ Even the most successful leaders find this challenging. However, doing so effectively helps teams avoid duplicated efforts, enables teams to learn from one another and generate new or unexpected ideas, and allows teams to develop and share best practices. When partnering leaders understand and employ decentralized team management, they are better equipped to advance mutual goals, share success, and achieve the partnership’s intended outcomes.