Collaborative Planning, Organizing & Coordinating

Collaborative planning, organizing and coordinating involves shared planning, establishing priorities jointly and assigning resources accordingly, with sensitivity to the competing demands faced by Indigenous peoples. It is expressed by building plans together prior to acting, and ensuring that plans and resourcing align with their evolving interests and needs. It involves timely monitoring, evaluation and work refinement to deliver on the BC Public Service mandate of supporting Indigenous self-determination. It means developing staff orientation and managing knowledge so that when a new employee takes up a position within an already established relationship, educating the employee does not automatically and continually fall to Indigenous people.

Demonstrates the Behaviour When

• Shows understanding of the cultural distinctions around collaboration
• Demonstrates trust that Indigenous people can best define their success and what is needed to ensure success
• Provides resources and support while taking a contributor role in meetings and gatherings (rather than asserting power)
• Proactively and jointly assesses risks and how to address them
• Develops accurate work, operational and/or project plans that reflect the results of collaboration
• Implements plans that honour agreements resulting from collaborative processes
• Follows agreements by organizing and coordinating the allocation of resources
• Communicates openly and regularly with all involved
• Ensures timely delivery of quality products and services through monitoring and evaluating collaboratively
• Ensures everyone, including new staff, is up-to-date on current processes and commitments with Indigenous people
• Analyzes organizational goals and looks for ways to support Indigenous self-determination
• Collaboratively determines measures to assess progress and compliance
• Takes initiative to gather all stakeholders when progress reports show a need to adjust
• "Clears the way" for staff to implement plans, allowing adequate time for collaboration as necessary
• Utilizes a strong understanding of relationships, to facilitate between Indigenous goals and the goals of the public service

Needs Development When

• Makes mistakes due to lack of understanding of the cultural distinctions around collaboration
• Maintains records and plans that are disorganized or confusing
• Moves ahead without collaboration due to sense of urgency
• Interprets work and organizational goals solely from public service perspective
• Takes well-intentioned action without collaboration
• Fails to fully educate and/or put into place transition reports when leaving a work position that includes collaboration and relationship with Indigenous people
• Leaves the job of educating new staff to Indigenous people
• Fails to translate collaborative results into planning
• Unconsciously returns to old ways of doing business in developing plans or measuring plan progress and compliance
• Fails to demonstrate sensitivity to the resource capacity of Indigenous people when designing timelines
• Makes changes without first jointly evaluating, analyzing and refining work products and services
• Asserts power to lead meetings or takes over during meetings
• Waits for problems to occur prior to taking action to adjust or address
• Fails to collaborate prior to making adjustments
• Fails to communicate openly and regularly with all involved
• Resists allocating resources to support goals leading to Indigenous self-determination and to support Indigenous people in general