Why We Must Collaborate in the New Era

When ‘relationship to a political party’ is in question, people often ask is it better to be partisan or bipartisan.

The answer is neither.

Those words have been abused and misused.

Partisanship has had its day. It is fine for ‘the parties’ to recognize their existence and organize how to work, BUT it is NOT fine, or productive, for partisanship to dominate our lives and political processes to the exclusion of making pragmatic compromises.

The recent election seemingly turned on the obvious idea and term ‘reunite’ us as a people.  We have become disunited in pursuit of partisanship.

The simplest way to resolve that problem is to COLLABORATE. That means understanding the other points of view and communicating with other parties to look for common ground.

I have been working for a decade to explain the need for an INTERSECTOR, which is a notional space where the three basic sectors- [government, business and non-profit] must come together to make our society work effectively to get people’s ‘business’ done.

Business, government and not-for-profits are separate and distinct for appropriate reasons [because they have different purposes and goals]. But, they have failed to collaborate because they either do not understand that is a key function, AND/OR they avoid it, for fear of being seen as too cooperative.

What now begins to emerge, from the 2020 election, is that what we see and call a divided nation is really in fact simply a nation that has failed—deliberately or unwittingly — to understand the need for COLLBORATION.

In the very simplest terms, collaboration should not expect or require capitulation, BUT it does require engagement to seek ways to work together to make the competing elements of our society functioning.

When we ditch the term partisanship and replace it with ‘collaboration’, as the cornerstone of modern democratic PROCESS, we are very likely to unlock productive new forces that will greatly improve governance and allow us to resolve our biggest challenges.