ABSTRACT
Moving from silos to collaboration requires public and nonprofit managers to think differently about working beyond discipline, organization, and sector boundaries. While contexts, participants, and processes are unique to every effort, six overarching principles define the distinctive core of successful strategic collaboration practice. These are: choose strategic collaboration wisely, understand the strategic collaboration life cycle, strengthen leadership capacity, balance risk and reward transparently, cultivate innovation for meaningful change and emphasize outcomes and impacts. The chapter discusses six principles and includes a tool for implementation or furthering thinking on key practice elements of strategic collaboration. Together the principles and the framework can transform the hard work of collaboration into workable strategies for resolving complex public problems and advancing public service practice. In strategic collaboration, leadership matters- both the structures that set up the leadership roles as well as the individuals who take on these roles. Effective decision making in the strategic collaboration setting requires a sufficient, yet not overwhelming, process-oriented perspective.
