Phase 2. Building the Foundations

Welcome to Building the Foundations! This phase of the Collaborative Change Cycle
is about becoming more open to working together, building a shared understanding of the system, brokering agreement that business as usual is not enough to make large scale impact, and partnering with community as the foundation for change.

What you might see

People have more confidence to create new ways of seeing the problem and potential solutions, based on their own knowledge and practices;
Increased willingness to take risks;
Leaders are starting to explore the multidimensional and interconnected nature of relevant issues;
There is an openness to building something new together;
The focus is on the technical work of change with emerging conversation on the adaptive work required;
A ‘container’ for change being created allowing diverse agendas and power differences to be explored;
A growing awareness of links and interdependencies;
Work on building relationships being prioritised over immediate solution focus.

What you can do

Convene existing, new and emerging leaders to explore common interests and goals;
Frame the work as a learning process requiring working differently together;
Understand the dynamics of change over the long term and surface the challenges that are likely to arise in advance;
Recognise the likelihood of speed bumps. It will likely be a case of two steps forward, one step back;
Develop an awareness of relationships, power, loyalties and potential gains and losses;
Identify where authorisation needs to come from (who needs to endorse you and others to take action);
Develop a shared language on complexity, collaboration and leadership;
To begin ‘building the container’, work with community to agree on a definition of the challenge;
Collectively agree on a process for creating a shared vision;
Understand your own capacity to hold conflict and identify what’s required to expand your skills in this area