Managing Coalitions: Dancing with Paradox

Forming a coalition is the first challenge - but managing a coalition is in many ways an even greater challenge. Some of the very elements that make coalitions strong and effective also bring inherent tensions that can pull coalitions apart.

• Diversity in coalitions brings with it a range of members, resources and points of view that can strengthen an effort and give it greater versatility and credibility. However, this same diversity often brings with it a diverse set of values and purposes for coalition members, putting tension on group unity.
• Having a set of common goals for a coalition is often a critical factor for a shared campaign. However, though members may share goals and a passion for accomplishing them, they may not share common ideas of how to determine or measure the success they're striving for, again generating tension.

Sonia Ospina has been part of the team from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University that has been working with the awardees of the Leadership for a Changing World program. In a recent paper based on her research, Sonia suggests that coalition leadership means dealing with paradoxes like these on a daily basis.

Effective leadership does not mean ignoring such paradoxes, nor even confronting them, trying to resolve them, or suppressing the tensions that they bring. Neither does it mean answering the demands of paradox unequally, and resigning oneself to the resulting tradeoffs. Instead, the artful management of paradox means “honoring, at the same time and with equal attention, important demands that require directing energy in opposite directions.”

Sonia's work with the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) and the Coalition of Asian, African, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois (CAAELIII), two coalitions working in the field of immigration, highlights some valuable lessons for artfully managing the paradoxes in coalitions. She suggests that coalition leaders manage two kinds of collaboration:

• Inward work - building, nurturing, and maintaining the coalition and coordinating coalition members, and
• Outward work - achieving the goals of the coalition by influencing a given target.

For inward work, the paradox is between unity and diversity; for outward work, the paradox is between confrontation and dialogue. How do coalition leaders navigate these equal and opposing demands? Sonia's research suggests it's all in how you look at it. Effective leaders “transcend the paradoxes by constructing more accomodating perceptions of these opposite demands and acting on them.” In other words, they put their attention not on the tensions, but on the practices that help them navigate among these tensions to get the job done.

For the paradoxes of inward and outward work, here are some places to focus that keep coalitions moving forward:

• Unity vs. Diversity:
• nurture and facilitate member interaction
• promote openness and participatory processes
• cultivate personal relationships

• Confrontation vs. Dialogue:
• maintain the coalition's credibility
• link the local and the national levels of advocacy on the issue
• cultivate relationships on multiple levels, both within the target organization and with other stakeholder groups