9.3 Managing and maintaining relationships
- Managing relationships with members and community
- Balancing factional and diverse interests
- Managing relationships with other stakeholders
- Managing relationships with professionals
Managing and maintaining relationships with all your stakeholders is very important.
Some important relationships are enduring and close; others are time and issue specific; some are based on your social, kin or cultural ties.
Some relationships are informal and based on common interests or simply a willingness to help; others are a formal partnership or agreement.
You may find some relationships are with people or organisations that have very different values to your own.
Managing relationships with members and community
Your members and community are more likely to have trust and confidence in your organisation if they participate and are consulted about your governance process. Community and member engagement and communication should be ongoing, even when you expect the community might disagree with a decision.
An organisation’s most important relationships are actually the groups, communities or constituents they serve.
Different ways to help in the community
These Indigenous organisations have helped very different groups in their communities:
Effective consultation is important for understanding members’ and community opinions about a particular issue.
See: Resource 9.6 Tips—Improving consultation
Balancing factional and diverse interests
Indigenous organisations often have to balance competing demands of stakeholders and community members. This can sometimes be a challenge, especially if the requirements of one conflict directly with the demands of the other.
Often the members, directors and staff of Indigenous organisations have different cultural experiences, languages, values, rights, and interests. To maintain good relationships, organisations must be sensitive to this diversity.
Some groups have a particular interest—and organisations need to make sure that these groups aren’t stopped from taking part, even though they may not share the same interests as most members. Legislation exists to promote equal opportunity and ban discrimination.
See: Resource 9.7 Tips—How to balance different interests
Managing relationships with other stakeholders
Stakeholders—other than the community or members the organisation serves—are the people, organisations and groups who have an interest or ‘stake’ in the success of your organisation, and who are affected by, or can influence, your actions.
They may be government departments and officers, the private sector or other community or regional organisations.
It is important to identify all your key stakeholders for a particular issue—to understand their concerns, values and priorities, and their possible impact. Also consider:
- what kind of relationship you want to have with them
- how to manage the risks of their involvement
- how to make the most of your relationship with them
See: Resource 9.8 Tool—Stakeholder analysis
See also: Resource 3.4 Template—Governance development and action plan
Managing relationships with professionals
Indigenous communities and organisations need outside professional expertise sometimes. Occasionally this results in poor processes and outcomes, and wasted resources.
Positive engagement with professionals, whether they are partners, consultants or volunteers, requires effective decision making, policy guidelines and contract management—part of the governance role and responsibility.
See: Resource 9.9 Tips—Managing and maintaining relationships with professionals
See: Resource 9.10 Quiz—Do this quiz to check your understanding of what you have learnt in this chapter.
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