2. How do we create engagement?

How do we create engagement and establish collaboration?

If we want to create a good basis for, or improve, our cooperation, it is important to start with a well-thought out process. The framework conditions, process, and overall approach should be planned and decided upon in consensus. This allows for concerns and reservations to be clarified from the beginning and for everyone to find motivation to participate.

Work steps

For newly founded cooperatives:
During the process of establishing your cooperative, before the irrevocable decision to officially start your organisation, it makes strategic sense to work on the following 10 areas of work in sequential order. These fields of work are shown in the overview in a clockwise sequence. Work area one is not applicable, and you are currently working on work area two.

• 3 What guides us? Where do we want to go?
• 4 How do we get where we want to go?
• 5 Who does what?
• 6 What do we still need to learn?
• 7 How do we plan and operate?
• 8 How do we increase transparency and trust?
• 9 What do we contractually agree on?
• 10 Do we have everything we need?
• 11 How and when do we meet?
• 12 How do we remain viable into the future?

If parts of the following work has already been done, they can simply be checked to see if they are up-to-date and sufficiently integrated into operations.

It may be helpful to clarify and agree upon the following points in advance of embarking on collaborative work:

• Who “should” and who absolutely must be included?
• How long will we take to accomplish this work? How intensive do we want to set up our timeline?
• What should be clarified regarding the framework of this collaborative work? Where will we meet, for how long and how often will we meet, who is responsible for documentation?
  We recommend that you create a separate folder for this purpose, in which the materials for each area of work are stored and can be accessed by everyone. This can also be a digital folder.
• Do we trust ourselves to take essential steps without outside support? Or do we want to, at least regarding tense situations, to seek help from outside?
• What do we have to agree upon at the beginning of our collaborative work? Do we need, for example, to create a somewhat protected space that we do not bring personal issues into? Who do we talk to about what? What else do we have to agree upon?
• Do we need to define "k.o. criteria" which, if they occur, threaten the process and must be discussed immediately?
• Do we want to draft a "contract" at the beginning about the above mentioned points to foster active engagement?

For existing cooperatives:
After you have determined, perhaps with the help of the diagnostic sheet, that you want to clarify and improve your collaboration, it makes sense to agree on a common process. It is a good idea to work on your selected areas of work in a strategic order.

Some points to clarify and agree upon in advance of the collaborative work:

• Who “should” and who absolutely must be included?
• How long will we take to accomplish this work? How intensive do we want to set up our timeline?
• What should be clarified regarding the framework of this collaborative work? Where will we meet, for how long and how often will we meet, who is responsible for documentation?
  We recommend that you create a separate folder for this purpose, in which the materials for each area of work are stored and can be accessed by everyone. This can also be a digital folder.
• Do we trust ourselves to take essential steps without outside support? Or do we want to, at least regarding tense situations, to seek help from outside?
• What do we have to agree upon at the beginning of our collaborative work? Do we need, for example, to create a somewhat protected space that we do not bring personal issues into? Who do we talk to about what? What else do we have to agree upon?
• Do we need to define "k.o. criteria" which, if they occur, threaten the process and must be discussed immediately?
• Do we want to draft a "contract" at the beginning about the above mentioned points to foster active engagement?

Please note that some of these methods are only recommended for teams that do not have much tension and simply want to work together to improve their team culture. If greater tensions are present, we recommend that external support be sought. We define low-tension as follows:

• verbal communication is not very difficult
• participants have compassion for each other
• there is not a small subset of individuals forming a strong coalition within, and perhaps to the exclusion of, the larger team
• everyone is able to identify and express suggestions for areas of personal development to each other and is able to accept them from others

From our expereince, as soon as one of these points is impaired, these methods cannot be applied without external guidance.

You can download our work document here:

• Agreement_to_begin_an_improvement_process.docx

Here you can find supplementary documents for marketing associations:

• 01_Recommendations_for_the_initial_founding_group_and_proccess_for_regional_cooperatives.docx
• 02_Prerequisits_for_successful_cooperatives.docx