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The task of brokering relationships and connections is critical in human systems where there are complex challenges and multiple systems and boundaries which impact on outcomes. System boundaries are often tightly drawn to protect vested professional interests or create an illusion of order and organisational efficiency. People who are able to work across system boundaries and broker relationships in different spheres therefore have a key role to play in joining things up.
System brokers are people who are able to step outside of their organisational role to facilitate connections and relationships across different parts of the system and to enable a greater sense of shared purpose and ambition across boundaries. They are typically able to hold a ‘third position’ or to keep a foot in both camps even when confronted by system boundaries that demand a ‘them and us’, fragmented approach.
The terms ‘boundroid’ or ‘boundary spanners’ have been coined to describe those people whose professional lives span the boundaries of systems and who are confident enough about their own personal authority to let go of organisational authority, relying instead on their capacity to respond to the bigger, whole system purpose.
Brokerage roles may be informal and are often expressed through people who have developed the capacity for adaptiveness and flexibility along with imagination, courage and a commitment to shared purpose. Equally the brokerage role may be formally given to key individuals to connect systems and enable joint solutions to emerge.
The National Systems Leadership Programme in England describes the enabler role as having eight key components:
The Enabling Collaborative Leadership Pioneer Programme has been developed by Workforce Scotland to support staff in public service organisations to experiment with taking up an enabler role in local systems and to facilitating collaborative change wherever they find themselves.
The Step into Leadership (SiL) Middle Manager Framework contains a section on managing across boundaries.
A paper from the Crawford School of Economics and Governance in Australia which discusses the importance of traversing boundaries in public services.
The Art of Change Making is a resource with 70 interventions for system change used by ‘enablers’. It describes the enabler role on pages 10–11 and offers eight characteristics for effective system ‘enabling’.
Planning for the future by the Scottish Social Services Council is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://learn.sssc.uk.com.