For more information on Collaborative Management Systems and Network Analysis, please visit: www.collboarativemanagement.org

For more information on Blythe’s work in sustainability, social impact, strategy, change management and facilitation, please connect with Blythe via Linked In.

Key approaches:

We invest in trusting relationships. Trust is what enables us to have frank conversations, be honest about our challenges, and rely on each other. We create trust through an emphasis on transparency in our thinking and decision making.

We have a strong bias toward supporting prevention and long-term solutions. We push you to identify the root causes of the challenge at hand. When these are outside of the scope of work or impossible to impact, we work to acknowledge the complexity of the context and to influence factors that are in our locus of control.

This process is iterative: contexts are continuously changing and we’re always learning from others. We never wait until we are finished learning, that time would never come. Instead, we are constantly learning through doing. We develop our strategies, test them, and acknowledge that things will change.

We emphasize the need to connect your everyday activity to a broader strategy.  It is essential that everyone involved in an initiative has a deep understanding of the bigger picture, goals and purpose of their direct engagements.

   

Foundational theories:

Human Learning Ecology

Our thinking and ethic have been deeply influenced by Ken Low’s Human Learning Ecology framework. The framework describes the ways in which humans make sense of the world around them, choose what to do, and decide how to care. It has impacted how we think about capacity building and the ways we respond to authority. The framework also judges progress against actions that are in line with caring for all species and our planet. This influences how we think about social impact, sustainability, prevention, the long-term consequences of our work, creating change, defining progress and success, and the intersection between systemic dynamics and the day-to-day interventions.

Change management

Change management is the practice of managing the people side of change. It is an approach to supporting the individuals impacted by a change so that they successfully adopt it. This practice includes developing processes and structures, understanding organizational design and effectiveness, facilitating communications, and supporting leadership development and healthy team dynamics. Our approach to change management is to work with our partners to describe their current and ideal future state. A structured process helps them create the transition path to get from one to the other.

Quality improvement

We strive to embed a discipline of continuous quality improvement in the cultures and mindsets of our partners. Continuous quality improvement is a cycle where we identify challenges or opportunities, intervene in them, test that approach, and refine it. The cycle of identify, strategize, test, learn is closely connected to our approach to evaluation and its links to strategy.

Social anthropology

Our approach to developmental evaluation is informed by social anthropology. Anthropology influences the emphasis we put on paying attention to the intersecting dynamics of a situation. Each project is treated as having its own culture and ecosystem that we need to understand to effect change. We use an ethnographic approach by embedding ourselves in our partners work and observing interpersonal dynamics, to inform our strategy and recommendations.

Organizational culture design

Organizational culture determines the way people learn and underlies their ability to adapt to changing circumstances. This culture is established through the habits, norms, and structures embedded formally and informally within an organization. We believe that any sustainable change has to be supported by the broader culture. Therefore, our practice always involves observing, assessing, designing, and supporting culture development.

Network theory

We draw heavily on research that describes high-quality networks and their culture, the stages of network development, and approaches to leading and evaluating networks. We also use social network analysis to visualize the networks that we are working with and to support strategic planning and evaluation. We rely heavily on Darrin Hicks’ Process Quality Scale and the PARTNER tool, developed by Visible Network Labs.