Managing by Network

Objectives: By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Create or strengthen an internal and external network of individuals and organizations to advance the mission of the agency;
• Build trust with external partners using collaborative leadership, partnership leverage and partner cultural awareness;
• Sustain partnership accountability using external awareness and communication skills including collaboration, conflict management, facilitation, persuasion and negotiation;
• Develop, monitor and evaluate formal partnership agreements and projects that rely on a mix of federal and nonfederal funding, and
• Recognize the intent of agency policies and practices related to partner fundraising and donation activities.

What You Will Learn: Participants will acquire knowledge relating to partnership and collaboration essentials; strengthen skills relating to partnership and collaboration practices; and sharpen abilities to employ partnership and collaboration in context.

Length: 38 hours in total; offered in weekly, 2-hour synchronous webinars from January-June

Collaboration and Conflict Transformation in Multi-Party Processes

Objectives: By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Recognize and modify your own tendencies in thinking about and responding to conflict;
• Improve relationships with others participants in a multi-party process;
• Diagnose types of conflict and employ the appropriate techniques to address, manage, and transform conflict in decision processes effectively;
• Use techniques to build trust and repair broken relationships to promote enduring solutions;
• Evaluate and institutionalize collaborative decision processes;
• Lead or participate in a multi-party process from initiation to implementation effectively.

Who Should Attend: Individuals, such as environmental planners, regulatory specialists, consultation biologists, conservation practitioners and other natural resource professionals, who coordinate with others regarding complex, collaborative and/or conflict-ridden natural resource decisions.

What You Will Learn: Distinct from workplace interpersonal conflict, this course focuses on working with conflict in the context of natural resource decision making processes with other agencies, organizations, Tribal nations, or stakeholders. Natural resource professionals involved in multi-party collaborative decision processes face increasingly complex decisions where underlying conflict can undermine their success. Presentations, case studies, and discussions will be integrated with practical skill-building exercises to prepare you to productively move from initiation to implementation within a collaborative decision making process. The conflict transformation skills taught in this course will enable you to diagnose and work with conflict to motivate constructive change in yourself, others, and the institutions that must support implementation of any successful outcome.

Length: 4.5 days