An aptitude for collaboration and communication is critical to partnerships. Partners must be willing to negotiate when defining an agenda, communicate about the partnership’s work, engage and consider the needs of a range of stakeholders, and operate with flexibility and poise amid unpredictability.
Steve Fleishman of Education Northwest provides useful advice in determining whether an individual may be a good fit for partnership work: ask job candidates to describe interactions with individuals on similar research projects; invite them to talk about what matters to them most in terms of how they do their job; listen for an inclination toward collaboration, the ability to convey ideas in plain language, and a desire to pursue a joint research agenda to improve practice.
In general, good partners: validate each side’s expertise and authority in advancing collaborative work; cultivate an open and honest approach to communication that builds rapport and trust; demonstrate a commitment to addressing problems of practice and developing agency capacity; and are sensitive to timelines, contexts, and history as the research agenda is negotiated.
