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Section Five
Running a Coalition

"The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them."
Robert Frost

Overview of Section

This section discusses several factors that are critical to the day-to day running of a coalition. It deals with the people of the coalition, the leaders, the members, the committees and its community allies, and the roles they need to play for a healthy coalition. The section also deals with communication and some of the obstacles to effective communication. Finally, it talks about conflict, inevitable when capable people come together to do something significant, and ways of handling that conflict.

B. Communicating in the Coalition

Communicating Successfully Across All Levels

The value of a coalition is that it brings different people and groups together to work cooperatively. The problem within a coalition is that the people and groups who come together may indeed be different. These differences provide a challenge for communication. From their experience outside the coalition, participants know the value of communication and the difficulty of consistent, clear communication. Within a coalition, opportunities for communications are multiplied but so are the problems. While all recognize that something must be done to communicate more frequently and more accurately, the lack of time and money, along with the problems inherent in any communications model, create ongoing difficulties.

Communication Research in Coalitions

Most research with coalitions stresses the connection between frequent and meaningful communication and successful implementation of the organization's plan. Communication has been demonstrated to be critical at every level between staff and members, between staff members themselves, and between the coalition members. While all types of communication benefited the coalition, special benefit came from clear and frequent communication concerning the coalition plan and the level of implementation that had been reached. Researchers advocate open and frequent communication which they describe in the following words: "Collaborative group members interact often, update one another, discuss issues openly, convey all necessary information to one another and to people outside the group."²¹

Four Laws of Organizational Communication

Everywhere organizational communication is continually challenged first by the fact that clear and accurate communication is very difficult, and second by the realization that we have very high expectations for communications. We would suggest that to put our efforts in the proper perspective, we take to heart the four laws of organizational communication.²²

1. Communication usually fails—except by chance.

The hardest thing to do well consistently is to communicate. Because of the many ways a message can be garbled or lost, it should be communicated as many ways as possible.

2. If a communication can be understood in different ways, it will be misunderstood in just that way which does the most harm.

This corollary of Murphy's Law suggests that a backup plan should be prepared if something important is to be communicated.

3. There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant by your message.

The determination of people to believe what they know to be true exceeds the communication skills of the rest of us.

4. The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed.

Too much information may be as bad as too little.

Targets for Communication

Like most organizations, coalitions have both internal and external constituencies that they need to reach with their message. Since the formation of a coalition is an act of creativity and is not bound by years of tradition, the role of communicator and the vehicle by which communication takes place should receive primary consideration from the day the coalition comes into existence. Many coalitions face the problem of not having enough resources to do more than a very elementary attempt at complete communication. However, there are things that most coalitions can do in some manner adapted to their resources.

Internal Communication

1. Create a positive environment where people can discuss anything openly. Complex vehicles of communication are not as important as the opportunity to express a viewpoint.
2. Use basic forms of communication which tend to use fewer resources than others:
   • Mail to membership address lists
   • Use telephone chains to spread the word
   • Fax items to alert people to meetings and upcoming events
   • Distribute minutes of meetings in a regular and timely fashion
   • Conduct a telephone follow-up if someone misses a meeting.
3. Ensure that staff and members know what their responsibilities are about communication. There is a natural tendency for people to feel their task is done when some goal is reached. If communication is a value to the coalition, most tasks are not done until some formal or informal report of goal achievement is completed.
4. Set up expectations how communication will take place. With so many ways available for people to communicate, time may be wasted on communication that either does not hit its target or is redundant. For example, if people in a given office do not read memos, then don't send them. If people receive messages by e-mail, then a hard copy backup is superfluous.
5. Take into account the complexity of communicating with member organizations. These organizations are usually represented by individuals who are responsible for communicating to the relevant parties within their organization. The coalition should have a way of determining whether this takes place on a regular basis.
6. Do not leave leaders of organizations out of the loop. Often top leadership of the member organizations is involved in the beginning of the coalition and then program staff takes over. One way to keep everyone up to date is to circulate minutes of coalition meetings to representatives and to a wider circle within the member organizations. Another is to ask member organizations to include coalition updates in their internal newsletters and/or mailings.

External Communication

Consultants indicate that communication by a coalition with the world outside the coalition is essential but problematic. Coalitions at times will face not only inertia but active resistance. Coalitions seek to change the way society deals with certain issues. By definition, society does not want to change. Change always involves some reallocation of resources. Groups facing change usually fear that somehow the proposed change will bring them fewer resources. A communications consultant identifies certain principles for staff to consider.²³

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