Resources
120 Resources found
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From Us and Them to Positive Sum: Transforming Identity Politics into Collaborative Problem Solving
In the midst of threats to democracy, entrenched polarization, and longstanding power imbalances, how can consensus builders use our experience to help Americans find wiser, fairer, and more durable responses to public problems? In this article, CBI Managing Directors David Fairman and Stacie Smith share possible paths forward to collaborative problem solving.
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CBI Engages Switzer Fellows on Breakthrough Collaboration
On March 19, 2021, CBI hosted a virtual engagement for Switzer Network Fellows exploring "Breakthrough Collaboration on Environmental Problems."
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Part Four — Key Lessons
This is final part of a four-part series of blog posts, related to a recent article in CBI Reports, in which we sought to address several difficult questions related to facilitator identity in complex public disputes. In this post, we summarize key overall lessons.
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Part Three — The Value of Lived and Learned Experiences
This is part three of a four-part series of blog posts, related to a recent article in CBI Reports, in which we sought to address several difficult questions related to facilitator identity in complex public disputes. In this post, we discuss the importance of acknowledging both lived and learned experiences as key components and perceptions of identity.
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Part Two — Navigating Internal vs. External Perceptions of Facilitator Identity
This is part two of a four-part series of blog posts, related to a recent article in CBI Reports, in which we sought to address several difficult questions related to facilitator identity in complex public disputes. In this post, we address the importance of proactively and simultaneously tracking both internal and external perceptions of identity.
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Part One — Intersectionality and Facilitation
This is part one of a four-part series of blog posts, related to a recent article in CBI Reports, in which we sought to address several difficult questions related to facilitator identity in complex public disputes. In this post, we address the importance of understanding and navigating identity through an intersectional lens (i.e. acknowledging how multiple identity characteristics “intersect” and create different lived experiences for both stakeholders and facilitators), and doing so with humility and integrity.
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Cultivating Dignity in a Year of Rupture
If the scale of this year’s global health crisis, economic turbulence, social justice uprisings, and climate extremes indicates anything, it’s that there’s an undeniable need to move not just our hearts into a deeper understanding, but also our full selves into the work of greater change. In this blog, CBI Senior Mediator Merrick Hoben reflects on how to create spaces where meaningful and necessary dialogue can occur.
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Public Participation in the Throes of Coronavirus
CBI Latin America Director David Plumb reflects on the unique challenges posed by convening while social distancing in the wake of Coronavirus.
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Using Online Tools to Empower Collaboration
In this post, CBI offers more specific tips about the kinds of online tools you can use to generate participant input, both when participants are online together, and over time.
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Breaking Through to the Table: New Thoughts on a Perennial Problem
CBI is employing four critical elements of its breakthrough collaboration framework – trust building, creativity, negotiation, and joint action – to support stakeholders who are facing what seem like intractable disagreements on a public issue. These ingredients are powerful catalysts for collaboration, but they beg the question: how do we get stakeholders to the table in the first place? Using a challenging case in a New Jersey community as an example, CBI Managing Directors David Fairman and Stacie Smith discuss enabling conditions and catalysts needed to bring parties together to consider the possibility of collaboration.
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Breakthrough Collaboration: What is It and How Do We Help Make It Happen?
CBI’s vision is a world in which the most complex problems are solved through collaboration. In this era of high polarization on pressing public issues, creating strong partnerships to meet public challenges is more urgent, and more difficult. At CBI, we have been discussing the need for what we are calling "breakthrough collaboration" to help groups and organizations work together in situations where trust is low and there is no shared vision, yet the stakeholders know they need to work together over the long haul to tackle the challenge at hand. In this article, Managing Director David Fairman and Associate Managing Director Stacie Smith present CBI’s preliminary thinking on what it takes to advance breakthrough collaboration, and how the key ingredients can be blended to create sustainable solutions to seemingly intractable problems. We welcome your input as we continue to explore what it takes to achieve breakthrough collaboration!
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Past as Present: Facilitating Collaborative Processes with Those Historically Wronged
How do fundamental issues of identity, justice, and power affect the facilitation of dialogue with groups that include individuals who have experienced injustice? How does one’s own identity as a facilitator affect the ability to remain neutral and help these groups address challenges? Managing Director Pat Field reflects on lessons learned from engagements over his 25 years as a facilitator and mediator.
