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Welcoming You

If relationships matter to you and you want to bring them more deeply into your work, join the Relational Coordination Collaborative.  Become a member or renew your membership to learn more how to incorporate relational coordination theory and methods into your research and practice.

Relational Coordination Is...

Relational coordination is a mutually reinforcing process of communicating and relating for the purpose of task integration.  Relational coordination is shaped by organizational structures and it predicts a wide range of desired performance outcomes.  Relational coordination is measured as a network of ties across roles in any work process that requires coordination. It is particularly important for achieving performance outcomes when work is highly interdependent, uncertain and time constrained.  Relational coordination has been tested in over 73 industry sectors and 36 countries according to a  systematic review published by Bolton, Logan and Gittell (2021) in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, called Revisiting Relational Coordination: A Systematic Review.

Seven Dimensions of Relational Coordination

What is the RCC?

The Relational Coordination Collaborative is an open inclusive community of researchers and practitioners working across sectors to develop, test, and implement relational theories of coordination, leadership and change.  We were founded at Brandeis University in 2011 by Professor Jody Hoffer Gittell to bring research and practice together, in partnership with colleagues at Brandeis and around the world. To help people develop, test and implement relational theories of coordination, leadership and change, the RCC offers a Membership Community with the following options:

  • RC Cafes are monthly zoom gatherings for members to share their research and practice and get feedback in an engaging, well-structured one-hour format.  Check out the Spring lineup and register here.
  • Give & Get Open Space is a new way for members to connect informally by zoom.  Experienced RC practitioners Jim Best and Carlos Arce are hosting this space monthly so please - feel free to drop in with questions, to hear what others are working on, and to offer any expertise you may have. 
  • Innovation Labs are spaces for members to organize and develop new ideas together. 
  • The RCC Roundtable is a gathering hosted each Fall in different locations to share your work through a peer-reviewed process, renew existing relationships and build new ones - to be hosted this year at University of California Berkeley November 8-9, 2024!
  • RCC Google Group is a new channel for members to connect by email (in place of Slack). You can share new publications, job postings, requests for advice, training opportunities, conference announcements, calls for papers, ideas, Innovation Lab updates, and discussions after events.  As a member, you will be automatically included in the Google Group starting March 4 and can opt out whenever you choose.
  • Newsletters with events and other updates are sent to RCC members and the broader community once or twice per month.
  • Resources developed and offered by our members, including measurement tools, training, consulting, certification, analytic support, and teaching tools.

Featured Readings

Spotlights

MARCH RC CAFE

Relational Analytics - Innovations in Relational Coordination and Social Network Analysis

March 14, 3-4:00 pm ET

  • Scott Soltis, University of Kentucky
  • Jody Hoffer Gittell, Brandeis University
  • Ajay Mehra, University of Kentucky
  • Jill Marsteller, Johns Hopkins University
  • Sijia Wei, Northwestern University
  • Heba Naim Ali, Brandeis University

REGISTER HERE!

INNOVATION LABS

Innovation Labs are creative spaces within the Relational Coordination Collaborative where members work to develop new ideas. RCC members are invited to join as many of these labs as they like.  Check out these existing labs and/or start a new one! 

Resilient Communities Innovation Lab

Healthcare Innovation Lab

Higher Education Innovation Lab

Digital Ecosystems Innovation Lab

RCC Community Building Innovation Lab

LEARN MORE HERE

RC SURVEY

The RC SurveyTM is a validated tool for researchers and practitioners.  For researchers, the RC SurveyTM helps to explore how relational coordination develops and impacts outcomes in a specific context and for specific populations, and how structures and policies can either weaken or strengthen it.  For practitioners, the RC SurveyTM can help to assess the current state and design interventions to improve performance.  Relational Coordination Analytics has a user-friendly platform to assess RC with data visualizations, cross-site benchmarking, trends over time, and more.

LEARN MORE HERE

How RC Transforms Organizations

In Healthcare

"Our RC work seems to have improved and sustained employee engagement. We always talk about patients as the center of everything. Sometimes people just get exhausted. RC gets at the patient in a very employee-centered way. In the short time we've been using it, people feel inherently more valued and more important. It shows the providers how much everyone does."

-VP of Nursing, Primary Healthcare Organization

In Communities

"We haven't had a tool before for measuring this. One thing is talking about networks; now we can see it."

- Director of Social Health and Employment, Varde Municipality, Denmark

In Education

"Before it was very much about your measures and your data, and no one able to see them but the individual teacher.  Now it's - we're all responsible for all these students and we all own the data.  It's not about pitting people against each other."

- Assistant Superintendent, North Reading School District