Handbook for Strategic HR

CHAPTER 47

Creating a Culture of Collaboration in a City Government

Nancy L. Southern

CULTURES OF COLLABORATION invite stakeholders to participate together in ways that support the organization’s mission, enhance the personal development of its members, and provide a needed service to the community with a vision of creating a better world.

My work with senior and mid-level managers in a United States city government serving a diverse, rapidly growing population of over 900,000 provides a process model for creating a culture of collaboration. The city manager I worked with knew that a culture change was needed and he had already begun that process when we first met. As happens in most organizational culture changes, he had brought in new managers ...