This blog post by Phill Butler of visionSynergy discusses the use of listening teams as a network facilitation practice that increases a facilitator’s effectiveness and results in better meeting outcomes…
Partnership and Network Listening Teams

India has about 4635 people groups. Many are yet to be reached with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the effective ways of reaching the unreached is through a People Group approach… In order to reach a particular People Group (like Marwaris, Sindhis, Lingayats) etc., a coordinated strategy to work together will be very useful. We call this working in partnership….
In a time when so much is being said about ‘networks’ and ‘partnerships,’ what do we really mean? Knowing what form of collaboration is most relevant to the challenge we are trying to address can be critical. Are partnerships and networks really the same? If they’re different, so what? The answer is that, no, they are not the same. And, yes, understanding their differences, their strengths and weaknesses, can have a real impact on what you do and how you do it, and can save time, energy, and frustration!
A partnership always defines its own ground rules regarding participation. Typically ‘strong’ partnerships are based on very specific points of commonality among the participants and there are clear and reasonably costly participation requirements (those costs may be cash, resources, political, organizational, influence, personal loyalty and/or commitment, commitment of other tangible or intangible assets, or other obligations of participants).