How do you build and maintain trust and rapport with your program partners and collaborators?

2 Show respect and appreciation

Respect and appreciation are essential to maintaining trust and rapport with your program partners and collaborators. You need to show respect for their expertise, experience, culture, values, and opinions, even if you disagree or have different approaches. You also need to show appreciation for their contributions, efforts, achievements, and feedback, and recognize their strengths and challenges. You can express your respect and appreciation verbally, in writing, or through gestures, such as thanking, praising, acknowledging, or rewarding.

3 Collaborate and learn

Collaboration and learning are important to enhancing trust and rapport with your program partners and collaborators. You need to collaborate with them on planning, decision making, problem solving, and evaluation, and seek their input and feedback. You also need to learn from them, by sharing best practices, lessons learned, resources, and ideas, and by asking for advice, support, or mentoring. You can foster collaboration and learning by creating opportunities for interaction, exchange, and feedback, such as workshops, webinars, forums, or networks.

4 Adapt and be flexible

Adaptation and flexibility are crucial to sustaining trust and rapport with your program partners and collaborators. You need to adapt to changing circumstances, needs, opportunities, and challenges in your program implementation, and be flexible in your methods, strategies, and expectations. You also need to support your partners and collaborators in adapting and being flexible, by providing guidance, resources, feedback, and encouragement. You can demonstrate adaptation and flexibility by being open-minded, proactive, creative, and solution-oriented.

5 Address issues and conflicts

Issues and conflicts are inevitable in any program implementation, and they can affect trust and rapport with your program partners and collaborators. You need to address them promptly, respectfully, and constructively, and avoid blaming, ignoring, or escalating them. You also need to involve your partners and collaborators in resolving them, by listening, understanding, negotiating, and compromising. You can prevent or minimize issues and conflicts by setting clear expectations, boundaries, and ground rules, and by monitoring and evaluating your program implementation.

6 Seek feedback and improvement

Feedback and improvement are beneficial to improving trust and rapport with your program partners and collaborators. You need to seek feedback from them on your performance, outcomes, impact, and satisfaction, and use it to improve your program implementation. You also need to provide feedback to them on their performance, outcomes, impact, and satisfaction, and help them improve their program implementation. You can seek and provide feedback by using formal or informal methods, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, or observations.