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About Learning Centre - Find research and practical knowledge about community engagement.
Events Listing - Details about events hosted by Tamarack and our partners.
Bookstore - Discover and explore books developed by Tamarack and others.
Aides for Action - Find resources to assist you in applying learning and taking action.
Online Audio seminars - Listen to audio seminars with thought leaders from Canada and around the world.
Resource Library - Explore Tamarack’s community engagement resources – including research, articles and related links.
Engage! E-Magazine - Tamarack's signature e-magazine provides useful resources and interesting articles on collaboration and engagement. Subscribe here! |
The Learning Centre, established in 2003, is designed to create a fluid, creative system of documenting community building activity and delivering this learning to organizations. The centre has a threefold purpose: to broadly disseminate knowledge gathered through research and practical experience; to help communities increase their power through learning; and to generate knowledge about community engagement so as to advance the field. Learn more about the Learning Centre here.
The notion of “leading together” may seem paradoxical when contrasted to more traditional images of leadership that emphasize the individual.
 However, David Chrislip, a scholar and long-time friend of Tamarack, suggests that, “traditional models of leadership do not serve us well, especially in our increasingly diverse and complex society.” He suggests that collaborative leadership – or leading together – is a far more effective approach when dealing with complexity.
At the core, the premise of collaborative leadership says: if you bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with good information, they will create authentic visions and strategies for addressing the shared concerns of the organization and community. As Chrislip reminds us, “We need to remember that how we decide is as important as what we decide. The quality of engagement reflects the quality of our decisions and, ultimately, the quality of our outcomes.”
Echoing these thoughts, Angeles Arrien, the award-winning author and renowned cultural anthropologist, recently observed, “Globally and culturally we are undergoing an initiation. An archetypal shift is occurring where we are moving out of the journey of the hero and the heroine...moving into the journey of partnership or the journey of the tribe. The journey of partnership requires the spirit of cooperation and collaboration...that we learn about collective leadership and collective wisdom.”
Today, large scale changes in our environment, our economy and all around us are deeply impacting communities in both positive and negative ways. We are living in a time of great chaos. In the face of these challenges, organizations and individuals in Canada and elsewhere are discovering that collaboration is an effective approach for addressing complex community issues.
There is growing recognition from the Innovation Network for Communities and many others that collaboration “provides social-change agents with a fundamentally distinct and remarkably promising ‘organizing principle’ to use to achieve ambitious goals.” If you are curious about how you might cultivate or strengthen your capacity to effectively lead collaborations, you should attend the 2010 Communities Collaborating Institute, Tamarack’s signature week-long learning event being held in Kitchener from September 27th to October 1st, 2010.
The CCI 2010: Leading Together in Chaotic Times is geared specifically for those wanting to rejuvenate and grow their collaborative leadership capacity. A dynamic array of some of North America’s most renowned and respected authorities on collaboration have been secured for this event, including Thomas Homer-Dixon, Brenda Zimmerman, Anne Kubisch and more. Visit our Communities Collaborating Institute web section for a complete list, including biographies.
Participants at CCI 2010 will have the opportunity to be inspired by the insights from these renowned thought-leaders as they deepen their understanding of strategies to engage and mobilize citizens across multiple sectors to advance their community’s agenda. In these increasingly chaotic times, cultivating the skill to effectively lead collaborations would seem a wise professional development investment. We hope you will consider joining us.
If you are curious about how you might cultivate or strengthen your capacity to effectively lead collaborations, you should attend the 2010 Communities Collaborating Institute, Tamarack’s signature week-long learning event.
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Banner Photos
Courtesy of Carl Hiebert. |
