Pilot Project in Collaborative Leadership: Skills and Strategies for Consensus Building, Mediation, and Problem Solving

Abstract

In 2006, the Federal Highway Administration, the Minnesota Local Technical Assistance Program, and The Keystone Center began work on a pilot program aimed at these objectives: 1. Training transportation officials in collaborative leadership; 2. Providing a venue for those officials to exercise leadership, solve problems, and move stalled projects to completion; 3. Demonstrating that mediation is an effective tool in resolving conflict over transportation projects; 4. Providing a model that can be replicated elsewhere. Staff from these three organizations worked together to develop a one-day training program in collaborative leadership; establish criteria for selecting a transportation project that could benefit from the application of collaborative leadership and mediation; identify projects that fit the criteria; select the most appropriate project; train transportation officials working on the project; and mediate the dispute. In January 2007, transportation staff from Blue Earth County, Minnesota, nominated County State Aid Highway (CSAH) 26 for mediation and agreed to participate in the pilot training program. The project met the criteria as established prior to the application process - urgency, likelihood that the dispute could be settled in three sessions, and willingness to mediate. In a one-day training session, the local, state, and federal transportation officials focused on interest based problem solving, the mediation process, the principles and practices of collaborative leadership, and specific application of all three to the Blue Earth County case. Although the training and mediation seemed to have succeeded in helping the participants reach an agreement that would be implemented, the county unilaterally cancelled the agreement without notice to the other parties. The pilot failed to achieve its ultimate goal - an implemented agreement - but did achieve some of what the project team set out to accomplish. Despite the outcome, the project team continues to believe that, with some modifications, a training-mediation program has strong potential to be useful for other transportation projects. The project team included Tom Sorel, Julie Skallman, Cheri Marti, Jan Lucke Mike Hughes.