“Developing trust and navigating conflict, what some people would call soft skills, are some of the more challenging skills to develop.”

Welcome to 2023! As your co-op board of directors reflects on the past year and refreshes for the upcoming one, don’t forget that Columinate’s Cooperative Board Leadership Development program (CBLD) is here to support your work. For nineteen years, this award-winning program has been a resource to co-op boards across the country, providing monthly consulting, facilitated board retreats, and a robust lineup of engaging, relevant webinars. In January, CBLD is kicking off its fresh slate of webinars with sessions focused on building trust and navigating conflict.

Building Trust in the Board/Manager Relationship:

January 17 webinar

Created and facilitated in collaboration by Columinate consultants Carolee Colter, Mark Mulcahy, and Todd Wallace (also a Columinate board member), this webinar on January 17 explores how to nurture the relationship at the foundation of your co-op: that between board members and the general manager (GM). Collaborative bodies by nature, boards must work together and alongside the general manager to lead the co-op successfully. Doing so requires trust.
However, “it is not uncommon for there to be a lack of trust between boards and GMs,” adds Colter, “and when this is the case it affects the whole community.” When trust is broken, it is difficult for a co-op to achieve its full potential. “As a co-op board member, it is your duty to try and rebuild trust once it has been chipped away.”

However, if there is a desire to restore trust, it can be done, despite the story we sometimes tell ourselves. This webinar provides attendees with practical steps they can take to repair trust.

For those boards not currently working through any specific concerns regarding trust, this webinar can still be quite valuable. Trust, as in all relationships, is something that must be actively nourished if it is to be sustained. “The idea that you work on trust once it’s broken is not necessarily the best way to go about it,” explains Wallace. Co-ops proactively fostering a deep culture of trust are better positioned to surmount challenges and stressors as they arise. And, as Ruben Nelson said, “If trust at deep levels is present, a group of people can handle almost anything.”

Navigating Conflict on the Board:

January 31 and February 7 webinars

Following the trust-building webinar, Colter, Wallace, and Mulcahy kick off their two-part series on navigating conflict on January 31. In the first session of this webinar, participants will be asked to critically reflect on and deepen their understanding of conflict. “What we have seen is a tremendous aversion to conflict,” says Colter. “There is a sense that if there is conflict, it’s because of some failure on the part of leadership and should therefore be avoided.” In reality, conflict is a normal and necessary facet of organizational life.

“Whenever people are working together, there will be disagreements and differing opinions. Conflict arises naturally—but it’s not necessarily a bad thing,” explains Colter. Conflict avoidance, however, has the potential to diminish a group’s capacity to address their problems head-on and to speak honestly. This webinar encourages participants to identify and process their own feelings surrounding conflict, with the hope that participants can embrace conflict and its benefits in the future.

Part two of this series, on February 7, hones in on building the skills, strategies, and behaviors necessary to benefit from conflict and navigate it successfully.

“Board members volunteer for their position not because they are experts in relationships or accounting—we don’t expect them to be,” explains Mulcahy. “They run because they care about their community co-op.” Board members attend financial training to understand how to read a balance sheet. Similarly, these webinars build social-emotional skills around developing trust and navigating conflict. “The emphasis of these webinars is on developing what some people would call soft skills,” says Wallace, “but I don’t like that term. It makes it sound like they are easier, but I would say they are some of the more challenging skills to develop.”

Sign up for one or both of these webinars today!

• January 17: Building Trust in the Board/Manager Relationship
• Jan 31/ Feb 7: Navigating Conflict on the Board

All webinars are free to CBLD members. Join today by contacting program coordinator Leslie Watson, cbld_enrollment@columinate.coop, to enroll today!

For non-members, each webinar is $50 per person.