How many fingers am I holding up? (Two)

I think the most successful inter-agency meetings I have participated in out here involve no more than two agencies.

In the four years I've spent in remote communities, I can only remember one standout successful inter-agency meeting with more than two agencies present. Four years. And I participate in at least two or three inter-agency exchanges a week (on average), with a formal inter-agency meeting about once a month.

A visual metaphor for inter-agency collaboration

That's not such a great strike rate. In fact it's abysmal. So why is inter-agency work so difficult?

Part of the answer is I think explained in the previous post. The extraordinary impact that individuals have on the success or otherwise of a service or program. Individual personalities become almost larger than life, for there is frankly no-one else in the particular organisation to work with if personalities clash.

I wonder too if a certain type of personality is attracted to work out here. Driven, ambitious, confident, risk-takers. Perhaps that was me too when I first came (or even now... I'm not so sure). This is hardly the personality type that thrives on collaboration and cooperation. That deeply enjoys the experience of a mutually agreed way forward.

When underpinned by a standard Western mentality of individualism, and the importance of 'doing' (something.... anything), this may go some way to explaining the stumbling blocks in joining up.

Over the years I've found that most inter-agency meetings are mere descriptions of activities, stated with the usual rider that all assistance is welcome from others to help them meet their agenda. Sometimes, in sadly familiar 'disaster-prone' territory, the dominant individual asserts his or her agenda to the exclusion of others. Demanding explanations for how others are contributing to their goals. Worse, it ends up as a debate between two strong personalities, neither understanding nor likely to understand each other.

The simplest way I've found is to ride them out. Through gritted teeth. For in a year or so, the dominant personality gets frustrated and leaves. And community members wait patiently, with a mild interest, for who arrives next.

In the meantime, while I attend the multi-agency meetings out of respect, I've found the most successful collaboration comes from simple attempts to join up with another person in another agency on a specific task. That person may be gone next week, next month or next year, but at least you've found a way to work together this time, for now.