Leading Transformative Change Collectively: A Practitioner Guide to Realizing the SDGs

by Petra Kuenkel, Elisabeth Kuhn, Dominic Stucker, Douglas Williamson

Overview

This book directly helps decision-makers and change agents in companies, NGOs, and government bodies become more proficient in transformative, collaborative change in realizing the SDGs.

This practitioner’s handbook translates a systemic – and enlivening – approach to collaboration into day-to-day work and management. It connects the emerging practice of multi-stakeholder collaboration to easily understandable models, tools, and cases. Numerous, concrete cases not only bring this methodology to life, but also help identify the challenges and avoid common mistakes. The book can be used as a guide to apply a breakthrough approach for navigating the complexity of stakeholder systems, designing results-oriented process architectures, ensuring the success of cross-sector change initiatives, and enlivening collaboration ecosystems for SDG implementation. It is designed to enhance high quality stakeholder engagement, dialogue, and collaboration.

A must-read, the book sets a new standard for the collaborative implementation of Agenda 2030 and is a foundational guide for leading sustainability transformations collectively to achieve climate change mitigation, social integration, equitable value chains, and broad sustainability challenges.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367471187
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/09/2020
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Petra Kuenkel, Executive Committee Member of the Club of Rome and Founder of the Collective Leadership Institute, is a systems psychologist, visionary author, and expert in complex multi-stakeholder collaborations. She drives SDG implementation by scaling-up collective stewardship skills for corporations, public sector, and civil society.

Elisabeth Kühn is an expert in transformative sustainability initiatives that empower civil society actors. As a managing partner at the Collective Leadership Institute, she has worked extensively in facilitating and building capacity for collaboration of change agents in sustainable resource management and good governance.

Dominic Stucker’s passion is engaging multi-stakeholder teams to lead systems transformations for sustainability. As a Donella Meadows Fellow and managing partner at the Collective Leadership Institute, he is an expert dialogic facilitator, systems thinker, and process steward working across borders to help realize the SDGs.

Douglas F. Williamson is a managing partner at the Collective Leadership Institute, an education, facilitation, and sustainability communications expert, and an award-winning environmental filmmaker. He has substantial experience in working with international environmental NGOs, the United Nations University, and the US EPA’s Climate Change Division.

Table of Contents

List of acronyms vii

List of tables ix

List of figures xi

List of case examples xiii

List of boxes xv

Acknowledgments xvi

Preamble xviii

Foreword xix

Introduction 1

1 Getting started: understanding collaborative action for transformative change 10

Multi-stakeholder collaborations in SDC implementation 13

Leading collectively at all levels: from global to local 18

Formats of multi-stakeholder collaborations that fit purpose 23

Understanding cross-sector settings 32

Creating conditions for transformative change 43

The Collective Leadership Compass for the collaborative journey 53

2 Getting active: making multi-stakeholder collaborations work 71

Stewarding collaborative change: the Dialogic Change Model 72

Examples from the field: leading transformative change 110

3 Ensuring success: the role of dialogic process facilitators in enlivening collaboration ecosystems 129

The purpose of dialogue in multi-stakeholder collaborations 137

Dialogic process facilitators: stewards of aliveness in collaboration ecosystems 158

4 Becoming transformative: process architectures for building impactful collaboration ecosystems 208

Planning impact in multi-stakeholder collaborations 210

The purpose of process: cultivating aliveness in collaboration ecosystems 226

The purpose of structure: governance for sustaining aliveness in collaboration ecosystems 252

5 Becoming reflective: cultivating a culture of learning 265

From success factors to collaboration catalysts 268

The role of process monitoring in multi-stakeholder collaboration 283

Trouble shooting guide: managing difficulties in multi-stakeholder collaboration 296

Communication: the fastest route to a learning culture 313

Methodologies for leading transformative change collectively 320

6 Epilogue 334

Annex 1 Collective Leadership Compass 338

Annex 2 The Dialogic Change Model 339

Annex 3 SDGs 340

Annex 4 Glossary 341

Index 347