Fizzle out
There was lots of energy and potential at the start but that faded at the turning point of turning into a collectively agreed actionable plan
The kickoff workshop was electric. The room was buzzing with energy as our new coalition of partners mapped out the boundless potential of what we could achieve together. Everyone left feeling inspired, aligned on the big “why.” But a few meetings later, that momentum has stalled. The big vision is still there, but every time we try to translate it into a concrete, actionable plan, the conversation goes in circles. Questions about who really leads, how we make decisions, what the first practical steps should be, and who is responsible for what are left unanswered. The initial excitement is fading into a frustrating sense of inertia, and we’re left wondering: how do we recapture that initial spark and channel it into a shared plan that everyone feels true ownership over?
Layers of the Many-to-Many System linked to this challenge
The “Fizzle Out” challenge is often a symptom of deeper structural gaps. The following layers of the Many-to-Many System offer a more holistic way to think about the underlying patterns and needs that, when addressed, can help sustain momentum:
- Missions: Helps bridge the gap between the big vision and the immediate “what's next?” by distinguishing between the Wide and Narrow missions, providing a clear and achievable first focus.
- Ecosystem Strategy: Provides a framework for the collaborative process of deciding what to work on together, turning a broad vision into a shared strategic focus.
- Governance System: Addresses the critical questions of ‘who decides?’ and ‘how do we decide?’—often the key blockers that cause momentum to stall.
- Organising System: Focuses on translating strategy into action by clarifying roles, responsibilities, and the day-to-day ‘hum’ of the work, ensuring the plan can be lived out in practice.
We note that the Many-to-Many System focusses on, and therefore shares, infrastructural and process aids for these challenges. We recognise other critical facets including but not limited to relational holding, tending to power, team-building, facilitation and practice development could and should play a role in solving the challenges.
Tools and Examples linked to this Challenge
Moving from a powerful vision to a shared, actionable plan requires more than just good intentions—it requires practical scaffolding. The tools and examples below are designed to help with this critical transition. They offer tangible starting points for co-creating your initial strategy, defining roles, and building the momentum needed to move forward together.
Role Cards for Flexible Governance
Supports the development of flexible power, responsibility, accountability and risk-holding.
Open details →
Offer Canvas
Articulates activities and ideas collaborators wish to offer, whilst paying attention to capacity and energy.
Open details →Process Stewardship Experiment Log
Log book from the process stewardship perspective of the things tried and tested in the proof of possibility
Open details →Collaboration Process
A snapshot of the collaboration process we developed in our Proof of Possibility.
Open details →Alerts
Alerts are the critical 'watch-outs'—the common challenges, tensions, complexities, and areas where we learned special attention is required.
Too much emphasis on one area out of balance with the others
When stewarding governance, part of the skill is balancing focus on the mission and planned work (the why and what) with attention to governance, learning, and organising (the how). Too much emphasis on one side can disrupt group dynamics.
The mission and work provide momentum and direction, while governance, learning, and organising help manage differences, risks, tensions, disagreements, and learning. Each depends on the other, and if the balance is off, the collaboration can start to dysfunction.
Insufficient team configuration
If your task will involve stewarding the complex collaboration to set governance agreements, legal architecture, and organising and learning systems then not having the capacities in the team to enable this can inhibit how far these can be deeply coded to the mission and context.
Insufficient capacity, time and resource given to collaborating
It is often significantly underestimated how much time and attention is needed for the organising, governing, learning, operating, practising, embodying and other systems needed in order to do good work collaboratively. When this is not given enough attention the conditions erode over time.
Insights
Insights are the key discoveries that emerged from our work and point to promising pathways and core principles.
Mutually reinforcing cycles occur
When things go well, contributions amplify in a positive, virtuous cycle. Conversely, when dynamics tip and begin to deteriorate, a rapid, vicious cycle of withdrawal can take hold. A key part of the work is stewarding this balance to prevent the tip into a vicious cycle.
Stewardship needs some systemic design
Good intentions alone are normally insufficient for good collaboration. We need to nurture a system that notices perverse incentives and externalities and accounts for them.
This is rarely something that can be done long-term by relational tending alone - some form of active systemic design is likely to be needed. This design can aim to create progressively better incentives and more capable deterrents for the behaviours, cultures and norms that the work needs.
Stewardship Capabilities
Stewarding governance and organising for complex collaborations is a craft that requires practice, multiple disciplines and many types of capacities (head, heart, hand, gut).
A Collaboration Process
We can draw on examples from other contexts to help decide how to steward a collaboration. The Process Stewardship Experiment Log shares an example from our Proof of Possibility; however, each context is different, and what is appropriate for yours may vary. The Simple Context Diagnostic can help you assess some patterns in your context.
Stewardship Team
Stewardship teams can be curated actively for the capabilities needed to design infrastructures and hold the processes and spaces required for complex collaboration. The Field Guide shares insights into the areas of work involved and possible team needs.
Types of Complex Collaboration
We can use different frameworks to help us to understand some of the patterns of our collaboration and how this may impact the approach we take to stewarding them (but note: these are aids but not blueprints).