Last week, my colleague Andrew Craig and I represented RBC at the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network (CEGN) annual conference in (still) snowcapped Banff, Alberta. The conference brings together philanthropic foundations that are helping propel the transition to a more sustainable world.

The conference keynote address was delivered by Adam Kahane. Adam, a best-selling author and an authority on systemic transformation and collaboration, discussed how collaboration is becoming increasingly important, but also increasingly difficult. He outlined his concept of “stretch collaboration”, a term describing a new approach to collaboration that embraces discord, experimentation and co-creation. Kahane said it is possible to get things done in complex situations even with people we don’t agree with, like or trust. Conventional collaboration often fails and we need to accept and shift to processes that could be messy, uncomfortable yet stimulating. A few “stretch collaboration” principles that caught our attention:

  • You don’t have to agree on the problem or a solution, but you need to commit to experimenting forward
  • You can’t be part of the solution if you don’t recognize you are part of the problem
  • You can’t change what other people are doing, but you need to step into the collaboration process

Read the full article about stretch collaboration by Navi Brar at Medium.