In this episode, we have a conversation with Sam Kaner and Nelli Noakes from
Community at Work in San Francisco. Sam Kaner is the senior author of Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. In 2006, Sam was named “one of the world´s leading experts in collaboration". Nelli Noakes is a practicing systems change consultant and is much sought after for her skillful approach to the diagnosis, design and facilitation of multi-stakeholder collaboration.

In 2018, we participated in their very inspiring training: "Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration-Strategies, design principles and best practices". We talk with Sam and Nelli about what it is that makes multi-stakeholder collaborations so complex, how we can handle diverse perspectives, the importance of having a shared aspiration, the risk with early consensus, "collaboration literacy" and groan zone.

4. Help solving the world’s toughest problems – Sam Kaner and Nelli Noakes

Art of Collaborating is a podcast produced by Länka Consulting. Länka was established in 2015 by Anna Zingmark and Karoline Bottheim with the mission to explore and develop the tricky "art" of multi-stakeholder-collaboration. When we meet between organizations, sectors and knowledge areas in order to find solutions for handling complex societal challenges, we need support from practical methods and ways of understanding how to collaborate more efficiently. After years of discussing this topic with experts, researchers and practitioners all over the world, we are quite sure that multi-stakeholder collaboration can be called an advanced "art", a specific way of working, it may even be seen as a specific "community of practice". With our podcast, we want to make this - really necessary - specific way of working accessible to more people who find themselves in complex processes with many stakeholders involved.