Stop Meeting to Meet

If you’re like me, you’ve walked out of a lot of partnership meetings thinking, “Well, there’s an hour we’re never getting back.” Everyone was polite. We shared updates. We scheduled the next meeting. But there was no progress—just the spin of the hamster wheel. 

That moment points to a tension we know well in public health. We need partnerships to tackle our biggest challenges. But too often, they don’t deliver. We keep showing up, hoping collaboration will lead somewhere. But too often, it doesn’t. 

Why Strategic Partnerships Matter

Today’s biggest public health challenges—eliminating health inequities, responding to emergencies and creating the public health system built for the future—can’t be solved by any single agency or discipline. These are shared problems. Solving them requires combining our unique strengths in new, deliberate ways. This work aligns directly with the Essential Public Health Services and PHAB Accreditation Standards. 

But “collaboration” isn’t a magic word. It’s a choice that comes with costs. Even a standing meeting can pull staff time from core work. Those FTEs translate into real dollars, and in many health departments, they’re already stretched thin.  

That’s why we need to stop checking boxes and start building collaborative advantage. Strategic partnerships should produce more than polite updates. They should create value none of us could achieve alone. To do that, we need better ways to decide which relationships are worth our time, and how to shape them so they actually deliver. 

What is collaborative advantage?

Collaborative advantage means achieving something together that none of us could accomplish alone. It’s more than alignment or coordination. It’s about creativity, adaptability and the willingness to show up differently. At its core, it’s the purposeful combination of complementary strengths so the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. 

We see collaborative advantage when hospitals and health departments co-create community health improvement plans—combining hospitals’ ability to expand access to care with public health’s capacity to improve upstream conditions. We also see it when state and local health departments, public health institutes and public health associations align around a shared statewide vision and move it forward together. 

These kinds of partnerships share a few core traits (Figure 1): 

• They align around a common purpose. 
• They share and braid resources. 
• They cultivate trust and psychological safety—where partners can be open, honest and even vulnerable. 

When these elements show up together, collaboration stops being a buzzword and starts driving real change. 

Figure 1: Collaborative Advantage  

Source: Kovach, K.A. Pursuing collaborative advantage to solve wicked problems in public health. JPHMP Direct. Published Aug. 17, 2023. Accessed Oct. 17, 2024. https://jphmpdirect.com/pursuing-collaborative-advantage-to-solve-wicked-problems-in-public-health/ 

Three Strategic Moves Public Health Leaders Can Make Now

1. Ask whether your partnerships are truly strategic.

Every partnership comes with trade-offs. Sure, they can boost legitimacy, prevent duplication and build connections. But they also take time away from core work, expose you to the partner’s challenges and require real investments in coordination, communication and trust-building. Don’t romanticize it. If the value isn’t clear, or the costs outweigh the benefits, it’s okay to pause, refine or decide it isn’t the right fit. Start by asking: What does our organization need to accomplish through this partnership? Then map out the specific benefits you expect—and the real costs you’re taking on. If the benefits aren’t tangible, or the costs are too high, it might not be the right approach.

2. Ask whether you’ve chosen the right form of collaboration.

Collaboration sits on a continuum—from basic information sharing to tightly integrated, co-managed work. You don’t need a complex structure for every challenge. Sometimes a loose network to share information or a tacit agreement to coordinate independent action is enough. But other times, a more formal arrangement is needed to support shared decision-making or pooled resources. 

Start by asking: What is the purpose of this partnership? Then map out the level of coordination, decision-making and resource sharing required to get there. If you don’t need deep integration, keep it simple. If you do, build the structure to support it.  

3. Ask how you can develop partnership synergy.

Synergy is what happens when partners combine their best strengths to create something none could do alone. It’s the transformative potential of collaboration—the reason we partner in the first place. Synergy includes both tangible contributions and the emotional feel of the relationship. It’s what keeps people coming back and what makes ambitious work possible. 

But too often, synergy goes undeveloped or underdeveloped. That’s where tools can help. The Give-Get Grid​^1,2​ makes expectations explicit: What can each partner contribute (the “gives”), and what do they need to stay engaged (the “gets”)? It helps prevent lopsided relationships and sets shared expectations that sustain the work. 

Then the Jones Synergy Scale​³​ helps you check the health of the relationship itself—how the partnership feels and functions day to day. Used together, these tools help you plan for synergy and measure whether your collaboration is actually delivering. 

The Strategic Partnership Development Toolkit

The new resource—Strategic Partnership Development: Achieving Collaborative Advantage in Public Health— gives public health leaders a practical way to assess, prioritize and strengthen their partnerships. In line with its ethos, the tool was developed in partnership with authors from the Kansas Health Institute, University of Kansas Medical Center and Kansas State University. It’s designed for real-world constraints—leaders juggling limited time and resources but still needing partnerships that deliver. 

The toolkit is grounded in evidence and field experience. It includes core concepts, practical worksheets and tips and short vignettes that show how to build collaborative advantage in practice. The toolkit is organized around: 

• What to consider before launching a partnership 
• How to assess whether a partnership is strategic 
• How to choose the right form of collaboration 
• How to make the partnership work day to day 

Whether you’re launching a new partnership or rethinking an existing one, this toolkit can help you build real collaborative advantage. 

Bottom line

We need partnerships. But we need better ones—rooted in purpose, built on trust and measured by shared impact. When done right, strategic partnerships don’t just help us do more—they help us do what matters most. If you’re ready to move from meetings to momentum, this toolkit is for you.  

Ready to get started? Download the Strategic Partnership Development Toolkit here: Strategic Partnership Development: Achieving Collaborative Advantage in Public Health – Kansas Health Institute. 

References

1. ​​Behringer B, Southerland JL, Plummer RM. Case Studies of Community–Academic Partnerships Established Using the Give-Get Grid Model. Health Promot Pract. 2018;19(5):654-663. doi:10.1177/1524839917740118 
2. ​Southerland J, Behringer B, Slawson DL. Using the Give-Get Grid to Understand Potential Expectations of Engagement in a Community-Academic Partnership. Health Promot Pract. 2013;14(6):909-917. doi:10.1177/1524839913477657 
3. ​Jones J, Barry MM. Developing a scale to measure synergy in health promotion partnerships. Glob Health Promot. 2011;18(2):36-44. doi:10.1177/1757975911404762