Cooperative Leadership Certification Program
Gain cooperative leadership tactics & tools in the online Level I: Facilitative Leadership Skills training.
Online Training | 10 Sessions | Cohort Community
Increase your facilitative leadership capacity in this training by:
- Tapping into tools, skills, & confidence to facilitate in the midst of uncertainty (hint: team work does make the dream work)
- Gaining effective AND collaborative decision-making processes (including figuring out who makes which decisions)
- Strengthening alignment & accountability and reduce burnout through collaborative project management tools
- Building community & hashing out the real world complexities in meaningful democratic management
Applications DUE Monday, May 1st, 2023! >> Apply Here!
Attend the Free Webinar: Embracing Uncertainty through Participation
An Introductory Session to the Cooperative Leadership Certification Program
Online | Wed, April 26th, 2023 | 3 pm – 4 pm EDT
Uncertainty is certain. When the unexpected comes up in our meetings or in the workflow (internal or external circumstances), it can be ungrounding, scary, and debilitating. The collective can hold us in these moments. We believe cooperation is an essential value and practice to help us navigate and even embrace uncertainty. So, how do you and your team members embrace this uncertainty through participation?
What does it take to facilitate a meeting and be able to address the (big and small) unexpected while moving your work forward effectively? How do you set up a flow for your team that holds all the ideas, gaps, and momentum of the group while also being able to adapt?
Don’t let uncertainty stop you in your tracks.
In this session, you’ll gain tools** to facilitate your collaborative teams in the midst of uncertainty including navigating the external factors and increasing complexity.
Reserve your spot in this FREE Webinar today!
**BONUS: **You’ll learn frameworks and tools (specifically how we orient to and process tensions in the meeting space) that have been practiced and used by our clients in the Cooperative Leadership Certification Program. You’ll get a taste of what people learn in this in-depth online program while having a handful of tools to bring back to your team.
You value the power of the collective and the importance of shared leadership and self organization.
You strive to nurture a culture of accountability in your teams, to co-design a people-centered and agile strategy, and to be a firm leader (that’s not dominating) to reach your team’s true potential.
You believe so strongly in the vision of your team, but you still feel stuck in the process, conflict, or never-ending task list. Time and again you see good intentions fail to truly deliver the momentum you know your team is capable of…
What does it take to get the success that you and your team want and need without being a “traditional leader”?
- Strengthen human-centered leadership
- Facilitate more mindfully
- Nurture accountability
- Handle tricky group dynamics (including uncertainty)
Leverage Your Leadership
To be an effective collaborative leader, you must have a deep understanding of how to meet people where they are, what your team members need to do their best work, and how to bring your team together so that you can take your accountability practices beyond delegation. You must figure out how to share the workload and prioritize together to prevent burnout, confusion, and resentment.
You’ll need both concrete tools and the somewhat abstract skills of leading a team to build up your team(s) and to facilitate efficient collective decision-making and manage conflict.
In this day, when one member of the team has a problem, more often than not, the whole team has a problem. BUT, it’s not only up to one person to solve it! in this course, our participants learn how to use their team members to help solve the tensions that come up.
This training has been designed to strengthen and build embodied, dynamic, and intentional shared leadership for cooperative and collaborative teams!
Which of these benefits would improve your current situation?
Share your answer in the application below!
- A comprehensive approach to participatory management
- Tools for sharing (and shifting) power in your team
- More productive meetings with clear outcomes and less wasted time
- Democratic management tools to strengthen and align your team
- A powerful, efficient, and inclusive decision making process
- Governance practices to make sustainable (and crucial) changes
- Use the energy of the collective to make innovative decisions
- Workable and effective accountability
- Mindful facilitation skills
- Increased self-awareness of your strengths and how to grow
What our past and current students are saying:
Over 100 people have participated in this training coming from all over the world. All are connected around this question of how to meaningfully collaborate together.
>>Meet *some* of them here!<<
Get all the Details of the CLCP Level I: Facilitative Leadership Skills Training
What’s Included:
- Adaptable tools you’ll use in REMOTE and in-person team management
- Facilitation practice with feedback to strengthen your shared leadership skills
- Practical templates and training to build responsive, dynamic collaborative teams, with empowered team members and working accountability
- A community of mission-driven change-makers, like you, to learn from and deepen your learning
- Weekly live sessions to get support with your facilitation, implementation, and troubleshooting the current issues in your team
- Online forums and student-led sessions to go deeper into the content with your peers
- Certification as a Collab Level 1: Facilitator to work as a professional and guide yourself and your team(s)
Have more questions? Check out the frequently asked questions page!
Who is this For?
- Managers, directors, & members in mission-driven teams (cooperatives, non-profits, boards, & businesses)
- Consultants, Coaches, & Cooperative Developers working with teams
- Small business owners doing succession planning or selling their business to their employees
- Leaders seeking new tools for their leadership and their team(s) for both remote work and in-person teams
- Organizations may also apply for a customized cohort to work on their organizational challenges together while building up leadership. Make a note in your application if you have more than 1 person from your team applying.
Important Dates
- Application deadline: May 1st 2023! (Apply below to start the conversation)
- Course begins: the week of May 29, 2023
- Sessions are held weekly for 10 weeks, plus an optional bonus 11th session for wrapping up material as it’s helpful to make the most out of what you’ve learned!
- The weekly schedule is determined by the students in the cohort (more details in the Frequently Asked Questions)
Click *Here* to Explore the Curriculum Details
The Level I Collab Facilitator Training includes 10 live weekly sessions (online via Zoom). The Level I curriculum is designed to gradually build upon each session. In each session there will be time given to troubleshoot real problems/scenarios, to connect with each other in the cohort, and to ask questions.
Session 1: Course Orientation & Theory of Collab
- Orientation to the course, instructors, assignments, and your cohort
- Get an overview of the theory that informs Collab’s processes for self-organized, collaborative, “teal”, and cooperative management systems
- Some tools/frameworks include:
- The Power Matrix
- The Seven Conversations: Introduction to the 7 conversations that every team must have to stay on track in all aspects
- The Pillars and Principles of Collab
Session 2: Collaborative Facilitation in Remote AND in Person Teams
- Learn in-person and online tools and skills for facilitating productive and inclusive meetings for shared and self-organized teams
- Get a step by step introduction to facilitating collaborative meetings via effective processes for knowing WHAT you and your team need in just about any situation and HOW to get there
- Build your facilitation skills such as how to manage difficult dynamics, get accountability, and communicate with clarity
- Increase your ability to manage the uncertainty that comes up in our team (including conflict and crisis) into positive movement for your team
- Hone in on skills to facilitate fun and productive meetings
- Integrate a practice you can use to continuously improve your facilitation
Session 3: Efficient Collaborative Decision-Making
- Understand a collaborative decision-making tool (Integrative Consent) to integrate different perspectives
- Gain confidence to facilitate a participatory process to get clear and aligning results
- Access tools and processes to explicitly define your many roles in order to to understand who makes which decisions
- Learn how to unravel the dynamic of “when everyone is accountable, no one is accountable”
Session 4: Implementation Tools and Techniques Part I: Embodying the change
- Learn how to introduce these tools to your potentially hesitant teams
- Gain implicit tactics for improving collaboration
- Identifying opportunities for intervention
Session 5: Self-management in a Self-organizing Team
- Understand the role of personal development in leading and managing
- Gain somatic awareness for skilled and grounded facilitation, including the better use of conflict in your team
- Learn a tangible and easily integrated approach to task and project tracking
- Integrate a project to upgrade or implement your own task tracking system that’s strong and intentional to visibly track your work and priorities in alignment with your team
Session 6: Mapping your Team through Clarifying Who’s Doing What
- Visibilize and work through how you share power in your team to get more ALIGNED energy and engagement from all team members
- Understand the purpose and use of core management roles and team based roles
- Envision and put what you’ve learned into practice with real world work and teams in your life
- Understand how to confer autonomy and get accountability (give people power over their work!)
- Create the foundation for collaborative accountability that transforms the patterns that make it difficult to hold people accountable in participatory environments
Session 7: Collaborative Accountability Systems
- Understand what accountability means and identify who we are accountable to
- Set up collective project management for crafting that culture of accountability across your team
- Get tools to become visibly on track and deliver on your goals
- Learn how to work with people in your team who, despite their good intentions, have not followed through with what they said they would do
- Learn why, how, and what to track for collaborative impact
Session 8: Implementation Tools and Techniques Part II: Practical Solutions to Different Situations
- Unpack different implementation scenarios to troubleshoot how to put these practices into place
- Get facilitation tips and tricks
- Review the course concepts and practices
Session 9: Practicing and Refining your Collaborative Leadership Skills
- Get an overview of how to facilitate the other conversations
- Practice and refine your facilitation skills as ways of managing unhealthy power dynamics in the moment
- Identify the need for purpose, business model, strategy, interpersonal and personal development conversations
- Prepare for the certification exam
Session 10: Integrating, Completing, and Moving Forward
- Review the certification test and training objectives
- Demonstrate the integration of your new capacities
- Create a clear plan of action for moving forward for yourself and your team
BONUS & Optional Session 11: Integrating, Completing, and Moving Forward Continued
- Review the certification test and training objectives
- Demonstrate the integration of your new capacities
- Create a clear plan of action for moving forward for yourself and your team
Click here to read more for the next steps
Step 1: Apply today BELOW
Step 2: Interview with a member of our team to determine if this is the right program for you
Step 3: Determine your financial needs and plans
- Payment plans and financial support options are available. And, some Vermont residents will be eligible for funding through a VSAC Non Academic Grant.
Step 4: Cohort Placement
- Then, you will be placed in a small cohort of your peers and an instructor.
- This cohort model provides space for group learning of collaboration practices, acts as a sounding board, and facilitates crucial feedback for practicing your leadership skills.
Step 5: The Course
- Your cohort will spend 10 weeks to take your collaborative leadership to the next level.
- The course will be delivered virtually and grounded in your real life challenges to maximize your benefits
Click here to find out: Financial Details
The cost of the Level I Training to become a certified Facilitator is $2500. This includes all learning materials, the 10 sessions, coordination, individualized feedback, and the training itself. Monthly payment plans are available.
**Financial Aid and Scholarships Available**
Our intention is to make this course accessible to everyone. If you need support financially, please indicate this as you apply for the course. We’ll do our best to make it work.
If you are a Vermont resident, you may be eligible for a VSAC non-degree grant. See more here.
We also have financial aid available if needed.
Cooperative Leadership Certification Program Application:
Take a look at this easy application below!
Reflect and answer the questions below, smash that submit button, and check your e-mail for an invitation to have a one-on-one meeting to discuss whether this training is the right fit. If you have any questions, add it to your application.
Don’t forget to click “Submit Your Application”!
Listen in on the Power Sharing Introductory Session:
Listen in on this conversation! Cooperative and solidarity economy leaders listened in on key lessons for power sharing and cooperative facilitation, while also gaining some tips and insight for human-centered meetings.