ABSTRACT
Management and leadership competence in collaborative settings has consequently become a job requirement of public and nonprofit managers. The reframing of collaboration to strategic collaboration offers an increased likelihood of success and positive outcomes from the collaborative venture as public and nonprofit managers become more purposeful about collaboration design and implementation processes, enable collaboration inclusiveness and effectiveness, decrease collaboration fatigue and frustrations, and proactively steer toward positive outcomes. Fundamental to achieving mastery of strategic collaboration practice is defining collaboration as a problem-solving approach that emerges over time through interdependent and reciprocal relationships. Public and nonprofit managers must learn to skillfully read the collaboration context, including an understanding of key actors motives and behaviors, and then, most critically, harness collective energy and steer toward results. Mastery of strategic collaboration requires the practitioner to adroitly translate knowledge and experience gained from organizational practice into a more nuanced and fluid situation as well as to continue to learn from collaboration experience.
