Leadership Plenty ' Building Strategic Partners'

Leadership Plenty
December 13, 2005
Dennis Kahl, University of Nebraska Rural Initiative, Lincoln

The Leadership Plenty Class met for session #6 on December 13th in Imperial. Our speaker was Dennis Kahl from the University of Nebraska Rural Initiative, Lincoln. The topic of discussion was ‘Building Strategic Partners’. Communities have begun to realize that in the attempt to solve deep-seated problems they cannot do it alone. In the process of narrowing the focus on specific problems the ‘big picture’ often gets lost, and efforts are fragmented. All of the many issues in a community need addressed, but if the community doesn’t work together, there is often a very minimal impact. Our session addressed the remedy for this community dilemma through strategic partnerships.

Partnership is ‘the cooperative relationship between two or more parties for the benefit of both or the greater good. In a community, partnerships are formed between individuals, organizations, and agencies that want to combine forces for a better result and have a notion that their own interests could be furthered by working with others’.

The idea of forming partnerships is an attractive notion for a community, but often times the community does not know how to go about forming one, and how to keep the momentum going once it is formed. The idea is to take several groups and develop goals together, instead of everyone taking a different route. We are all in need of knowledge, skills and resources that we do not have, and we all possess knowledge, skills and resources that someone else may need. The designated leaders of the group must learn to understand group dynamics, as well as manage and capitalize on conflict. Building partnerships takes time.

Dennis shared the video ‘Everyday Creativity’ with us that depicted Dewitt Jones, who is the photographer for National Geographic Magazine. This very beautiful and inspiring video was hosted by Dewitt Jones himself. He challenged us to ‘look at the ordinary, and see the extraordinary’. Dewitt said ‘we all have a passion for something, how can we make our lives and work extraordinary?’ As an example from his photography profession, ‘the lens we choose can change the perspective. There is always another perspective in everything we do. Break the pattern, embrace change, don’t fear it’. Dewitt challenged each of us to ‘not be afraid to make mistakes, break the pattern and reframe problems into opportunities’.

Dennis then had us divide into groups to discuss the biggest problems facing each of our communities. We then gathered our problems together and chose the top three issues affecting each of our communities. The top 3 issues are: 1) Job creation /retention/diversity/opportunity; 2) Rural to Urban migration; & 3) Creating a community that attracts people.

In conclusion, we need to strive to develop an attractive community with significant job opportunities that young people would want to come back to, and that, in itself will take the work and initiative of the whole community.

Leadership Plenty was developed by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change and is sponsored locally by the University of Nebraska Rural Initiative, Southwest Nebraska Community Betterment Corporation, City of Grant, and City of Imperial.

The next session of Leadership Plenty will be January 10, 2006 in Grant.
Article submitted by Shaun Meyer RN.