Community and Partnerships Through and Beyond Crisis

Things are inside-up and upside down right now that’s for sure! You may be reading this right now from the makeshift office you’ve set up in your living room. Or locked in your bedroom while your kids, or roommates, have taken over the kitchen table with their projects. We’re heard about people having Zoom meeting with someone working from inside a teepee, from pool side and even in the bathtub – video off (we hope)!

Maximizing Value in Partnerships

Maximizing Value in Partnerships

At JS Daw & Associates we live and breathe innovative partnerships – from the frameworks behind them, to the value and values that drive them. We are committed to sharing the latest resources and insights that will energize your collaborative efforts. Our purpose is to help you adapt, thrive and prepare for the collaborative future essential for sustainable, just and inclusive communities.

Partnerships and Polarity Management

Partnerships and Polarity Management

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” -  F. Scott Fitzgerald.We all tend to see the difficulties we encounter at work and in life in general as problems we must solve. We come by this tendency honestly through formal education and through learned experience where we told to look for “the answer” to our problems.

Embracing Inherent Partnership Tensions

Embracing Inherent Partnership Tensions

This past spring I participated in a conference on “Inherent Tensions in Networks”. The main theme was get comfortable with being uncomfortable when working in partnerships. When I work with partners I use a diversity of concepts and methods to support and enhance their work, including design and systems thinking and group dynamics. But “Polarity Thinking”, is one framework I use regularly. Like yin and yang, polarities are interdependent values that support each other.