Home
About
Services
Collaboration Tips
Media
Publications
Partners
Links & Bibliography
Contact Us
“Time for A New Paradigm of Government”
Prepared
for 9th International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change in
Organizations, 21-22 February 2019, Vancouver BC
“Intelligent governance: an alternative
paradigm”
Presentation
to the 68th Annual IPAC
National Conference, Toronto, 28-29 June 2016
"Re-Imagining Government"
Presentation
to 14th International Conference on Knowledge, Culture & Change
in Organizations, University of Oxford, August 2014
"Moving from Leadership to Stewardship"
Presentation
to 2nd Annual CAPPA Conference, Toronto 27-28 May 2013
"Mechanisms of Collaboration & Engagement"
Presentation
to 64th Annual IPAC Conference, St. John's NL
August 19-22,
2012
"Developmental Evaluation"
Learning
as you go
"Setting Up for Collaboration: Top Four Things
to Keep in Mind"
Key
questions to consider when thinking of collaboration.
"Metaphors, Biases & Learning
Partnerships"
10 Ways to Promote Effective Knowledge Mobilization.
Presentation to the PHAC ISHLCD workshop, Ottawa, 8-9 Feb.
2011
|
|
‘forging better results through collaboration’
This is the homepage for Christopher Wilson and Associates (CWA), a management and research consultancy operating since 1997. We specialize in issues of collaborative governance, regional stewardship and community-based action. Frequently acting as a learning coach, we work with clients to help them assess and reframe issues, build partnerships, create practical strategies, form effective policies, and evaluate outcomes.
Our mission is to help organizations forge better results through effective collaboration. Our passion is to work with innovators who recognize that making a difference, means bringing people together to work collaboratively. Our work with partnership organizations has led to important insights into partner management and governance renewal (see Resolving Collobration Issues) .
Our philosophy is that people can accomplish more together than they can separately . This in fact is
the philosophy that underpins every community and organization. In
addition, we are commited to the principle of stewardship in
organizations. We believe that those most affected by problems and those
most influential in resolving them should take ownership and
accountability for doing so. Top-down, patriarchical management practices are neither innovative enough, nor compelling enough, to produce the necessary commitments from stakeholders or employees to achieve effective and lasting results. Yet if we can redefine how we are with each other and create more welcoming and authentic conversations together, we can forge new visions of possibility that we can all begin living into.
See our sample Wish List of projects we would be excited to participate in.
The core of our work, aims to address the problems of collective action and overcoming the ‘social traps ’ that are created when individuals and organizations work together. To accomplish this, we help to foster collaborative capacity among participating utilizing a variety of techniques, tools and mechanisms that contribute to trusted relationships and collective learning. Our goal is to improve the quality of partner conversations drawing from our own knowledge and experience and that of our network partners.
(To learn more
about Christopher Wilson or have access to some of the books and articles
he's written
click
here
)
Getting Collaboration
Right
 The practice of collaboration is not
formulaic but the result of learning while doing . We encourage the development of new guiding frameworks and paradigms , the improvement of trust and transparency, and the creation of better mechanisms to satisfy contingent cooperation so that citizens, business leaders, and governments can make better use of their common resources to respond to their collective challenges. See our recent article on collaborative co-governance as a framework for approaching collaboration as a checklist of 'things to pay atention to'.
As a point of departure, we also encourage you to take the Partnership Test below to begin reflecting on the challenges that may be present in your organization or collaboration.
Our network of associates and partners includes: leading academics; business and community leaders; and senior public service professionals; and technology application developers.
We have been effective interviewers, program evaluators, case writers and facilitators, engaging clients in the processes of both meaning making and analysis. CWA also designs and delivers professional development and learning programs (see Services).
Our experience covers all four sectors – public, civic, educational and private, including clients from:
|
Check out Christopher's Recent
Book
Indie Reader has given Reimagining
Government a "4-Star" rating saying it gives "a
broad look at all the reasons our leaders are failing us, and the
institutions set up centuries ago to serve people are nowhere near
performing the way they should
be."
Despite the cultural and technological evolutions that
have t
aken place in society over the last 100 years,
our systems of institutional governance have failed to keep up. As a result, governments no longer have all the knowledge, resources or power to produce the results desired by their citizens, fostering a continual loss of confidence among citizens in the ability of their governments to be effective or ethical. This has led to a populist backlash, and to the creation of technological alternatives to governments as the primary source of social coordination.
This book explores the nature of both the current challenges to governments as well as the emerging ones, in order to discover what it is that governments need to be doing in our modern context and the capacities they need to develop to retain their legitimacy.
|
Public: The Public Health Agerncy of Canada, HRSDC, CIPO, Industry Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the Ontario Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities, the City of Ottawa, and Canada’s research granting councils (SSHRC, NSERC and MRC);
Civic: Canada's National Ballet
School, PHE Canada, Health Promoting Schools, IPAC, the Commonwealth Secretariat, CARE Canada, the Canadian Active After School Partnership, Ottawa Youth Services Bureau, the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation, and Electronic Commerce Canada;
Education: The University of Ottawa, the Ottawa Carleton District School Board, the Canada Council on Learning, and Algonquin College; and
Private: Isaix, Invenire, Nortel Networks, Mitel, KAO Infosystems, CGI and the Internet Institute.
Our consulting focus has been in eight principal areas:
- Enhancing democracy and reinventing government for tomorrow;
- Distributed, multi-stakeholder governance;
- Developmental evaluation and 'learning while doing';
-
Mass collaboration and e-government;
- Community-based collaboration, community networks and smart communities;
- Private public partnerships;
- Regional workforce systems; and
- Local innovation systems and regional advantage
This page was last updated 15 October 2020
|
