Talking the Walk: A Communication Manual for Partnership Practitioners

"Cross-sector partnerships are by their nature challenging, requiring collaboration between players from diverse organisations that may have quite different priorities, values and ways of working."

"...[F]ar from being incidental or peripheral, good communication is actually the heart or, perhaps more accurately, the heartbeat of all effective partnering."

"Cross-sector communication is not important simply for effective partnering. We are unlikely to find practical and lasting solutions to the worst horrors we face - whether in the form of pandemics, poverty, climate change or cross-cultural enmity - unless and until we learn how to collaborate. And we will never learn how to collaborate if we don't learn how to communicate."

~ from "Talking the Walk"

This manual provides guidelines on the use of communication to build and maintain effective partnerships. It emerges from the experience of the Partnering Initiative (TPI) – a global programme of the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) – which promotes rigour and good practice in cross-sector partnering for sustainable development.

The first 7 chapters of Talking the Walk outline and address challenges associated with communicating in partnership. As well as narrative, each chapter contains a number of boxes and tables giving examples or "Practitioner Tips". Near the start of chapter 7 (pages 58-59) is a diagram outlining the communication aspects of the Partnering Cycle. Amongst the topics addressed: Richer Conversations, Hearing Unheard Voices, Inter-cultural Communications, Use of Images, Communications Planning, Assessing Effectiveness, and more. Chapter 8 comprises 9 tools that may be used or adapted to particular contexts.

Woven throughout the manual are "think pieces" that the collection's 15 contributors have written - as an example of the collaboration that TPI sees as a vital ingredient of partnering communication. In addition, chapter 9 contains communication stories and communication case studies reflecting the experience of a range of practitioners in the field. Chapter 10 encourages the reader to anticipate the future challenges he or she will face, and to build communication skills to meet these challenges. To help in this endeavour, at the back of the manual TCI has included a Further Resources section, listing a number of print and online publications to add to the reader's communication toolkit.