Chapter 8: Networks

If the aforementioned performance drivers of motivation, collaborative ­capabilities, and leadership are a part of the creative engine driving collaborative performance, then networks and political influence appear to be the grit necessary to continue championing the collaboration’s solution to the marketplace. Networks consist of the web of relationships that are formed by stakeholders to support the completion of tasks, planning, learning, ideating, and socializing. Networks influence virtually everything that a cross-sector social partnership (CSSP) can accomplish and are vital to promote change, innovative thinking, projects, and decision-making. They are representative of both formal and informal structures of a collaboration, and CSSP leaders are wise to be intentional about building both.