High-Performance Partnerships - National Academy of Public ...

ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
chapter nine
• Positioning within the community is critical
to effective decision-making and sustainability.
Proximity to power can help immunize
a partnership from the forces that support
derailments.
• The governance structure must be strong
enough to ask non-performers to leave.
• The organizational structure should be formalized
with written bylaws that provide
for collaborative decision-making.
• The partnership must be customer focused.
A formal memorandum of understanding
should accompany the bylaws for governing
the partnership. It is through this mechanism
that partners can clearly understand
their roles and responsibilities, and collaborative
participation can take place.
• Performance outcomes must be paramount,
and the partnership should incentivize
results. The incentives may include recognition,
monetary rewards, access, and other
items. Nonetheless, results must count and
be communicated to all participants.
The Lapham Park Venture developed
a memorandum of understanding
with the primary partners,
specifying services that each
organization is to provide to the
residents and other partnership
members. The Venture also
established a steering committee,
resident organization, operations
committee, on-site providers
team, and resident services committee.
A formal document lists
membership and functions for
these governing committees (see
Appendix E).
• Achieve some successes early and build
upon them. Success, defined in terms of
quantifiable outcomes, is critical to any
long-term sustainable partnership.
• Cultivate the “culture” of partnering.
The organizational infrastructure must continue
to evolve as the environment and community
needs do. It must be sufficiently focused to
keep an eye on the mission and results. A successful
partnership reaches a point at which the
partners and the community “get it.” They are
actively engaged in solving problems. The
partnership has then crossed the boundary into
a performance arena. Once this occurs, it must
stretch the goals to achieve even greater results.
116 Powering the Future: High-Performance Partnerships