Feature Article:

Building Group-Level Partnerships

-- By Greg Baker, President and CEO, Advance Consulting

Building group-level partnerships in government and business is more essential than ever.  No group or person can do it alone.  This newsletter will answer three questions:

Business Drivers: Here are some examples of common circumstances that drive the need for one group to partner with another:

• Government Agencies: I recently served as a keynote speaker at a VA National HR Conference.  I presented in the morning and John Kamensky from IBM presented at lunch.  He spoke on the Six Trends Transforming Government.  One of the six trends he talked about is “Using Networks and Partnerships.”  His theme around this trend was “No one agency can deliver on anything important by itself.”  To his point, the need to build effective partnerships across government agencies was more than evident in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Whether one looked at the cooperative success stories or the uncooperative horror stories, Katrina confirmed the need to build cross-agency partnerships.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: Many, if not most of you, have experienced pain when two different companies “integrate” following a merger or acquisition.  The two organizations often have very different cultures and ways of doing things, which can lead to an “us/them” divide that is difficult to bridge.  All the while, the expected benefits of the acquisition are slow in coming and mediocre at best.
• Vendors and Clients: As with mergers and acquisitions, vendor/client relationships can be fraught with cultural and team integration issues, especially around longer-term projects.  If the divide is not bridged, the project has a high probability of failure.
• Supply Chain: As supply chains become more complex and global, involving more players, relationships become more important.  According to a recent Deloitte article, to be effective in supply chain management, companies must establish a “greater mutual understanding of the interests and challenges of all supply chain partners.”
• Sales/Service: Sales and professional service groups commonly have friction around things like roles, responsibilities, and handoffs.  Both the top and bottom lines depend on how well an organization resolves these issues.
• Functional Departments: In any large organization there is likely to be friction between departments.  In some cases it can result in all out tribal warfare!  More and more, departments must work collaboratively to accomplish the important tasks at hand.  Collaboration is poor at best between two warring factions.  Time for a partnership!

The Heart of the Matter: With all of these disparate drivers, what is at the heart of the matter?  What do all of these circumstances point to, and how do we find our way there?

The answer is that we must learn to cooperate and find common ground – or pay the price.  We cannot let the apparent appeal of conflict and need to be right get in the way of productive harmony. 

Partnership Considerations: Consider the following in your approach:

Levels of Partnership: There are different degrees or levels of partnership, and you must get clear on the nature of your desired business relationship and the level of partnership needed to accommodate that.  Why build a deeply synergistic partnership when a more transactional vendor-supplier relationship is what you need.  Conversely, an opportunity-driven approach to partnership will not work for a long-term partnership where mutual benefit and growth are desired.  Identifying your targeted level of partnership is an essential first step towards building your partnership.

Partnering Factors: Our research has identified six Partnering Factors essential to building any business partnership.  Addressing each of these factors systematically provides a roadmap for developing effective and sustainable business partnerships at your targeted level.  The Partnering Factors are: