We've Got the Power!

I recently attended an excellent alliance training class in Boston by Vantage Partners. I'll be commenting in future blog posts about several of my takeaways from the class and my fellow alliance professionals (40 strong) that attended.

My #1 takeaway? ....

We've Got the Power!

We have more power than we realize. Despite the obstacles and challenges inherent in building alliance capabilities in our organizations, despite all the things we feel we have no control over– we do have significant power in our role as “interventionists” in our organizations.

We can hone our skills as alliance professionals and learn the tools and techniques to manage conflict, negotiate based on interests versus positions, identify and manage differences to maximize mutual value of the alliance. The extent to which we build our own skills in these areas is the extent to which we can lead by showing our organizations a better way to think, a better way to make decisions, a more effective framework for managing conflict and thus, a better way to manage and optimize our alliance relationships. 

People follow competence. We can indeed change our organizations – one stakeholder at a time…

Badda bing Badda boom!

Please I beg you - don't be this guy. This is the badda bing, badda boom guy. The guy that starts calling partner prospects "because hey, we need partners!" without a thoughtful strategy.

I know the temptation to do this can be strong, especially if you work at a small company, or if you are under pressure at a larger one. But calling a partner prospect, without understaning why you are calling and why they should care, is a big mistake.

I've been there. While working for a startup, one of the founders came into my office one day and said "we have to partner with XYZ company, we need them!" When I said, "yes, but why do they need us?" he had no ready answer. I suggested we might want to wait until we thought this through before making that first call.

There are three things you must do before making that first call if you want to make a good first impression, and they are not always easy, especially #1.

1. Know your company's product strategy. This can be difficult for small companies, but I've found this to be a challenge at high tech companies of all sizes. With technology,  you can "do anything", so NIH (not invented here) mentality is often a barrier.
2. Know what's in it for the partner. This requires you to understand their business. Walk in their shoes. Understand their market pressures and aspirations. Do your homework!
3. Develop a "partnering proposition". This is critical. Your partnering proposition should articulate what it is you are proposing to do together. Since it's a strawman proposal - a starting point, you may not end up here, but please do not make the prospect figure out what you're asking to do!  Tell them. Simply. And make it as compelling as you can. "Here's what we do, here's what you do, we'd like to collaborate to deliver X and this is how it will benefit you and our mutual customers."

For more on developing a partnering proposition, see this Partnering Proposition Worksheet I developed for use in exploratory partnership discussions.

In the "friend zone"

I was having lunch with an alliance colleague a few months agoand he was diagnosing a problem with one of our alliance relationships. He said the problem we're having is that the partner was "treating us like a partner instead of like a client."

He went on to say, that if we were a client, they would be doing everything they could to understand our organizational structure, our culture, our internal capabilities, etc, in order to build a strategy for success. In other words we were relegated to "the friend zone".

It got me thinking that good alliance managers should use some of the same techniques to understand how to navigate and understand their partner's organization that good sales people use to understand the same about their customers'.

For example, the Global Alliance Manager on one of our key partnerships built an influence map of her partner's organization. For each key partner executive, her team identified their:

• Authority and influence
• Attitude toward our company (positive, neutral, negative)
• Personal style
• Relationships with other influencers

She's found this map very helpful in explaining the partner organization to internal executives and for understanding how to build support for joint initiatives.

There's a great article on influence maps on the Mind Tools website here.

Can't Get No Respect!

I often hear alliance managers complain that our roles are not valued by our organization. That company executives don't appreciate the value of alliances. That "alliances can't get any respect" in the organization.

While a lot of this grousing is somewhat justified - we have made great strides in our profession over the years, but we do have a ways to go - I do find myself challenging my colleagues on the grousing from time to time.

When a fellow alliance colleague comes to me complaining about his organization's ambivalence towards alliances, I ask a few questions:

• Do you have a formal, consistent process for qualifying, developing and executing new partners and new initiatives?
• Do you have a formal approval process for new partner ventures?
• Have all internal stakeholder roles and responsibilities been clearly defined, documented and agreed to?
• Does your Alliances Management team treat the alliance managers on the team like professionals? Is there a formal career path? Are there alliance training/professional development plans in place?
• Is your company a member of ASAP (Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals) and do you have certified alliance professionals on staff?
• Are strategic alliance teams staffed with people with the right skills and experience to do the job effectively?
• Is there formal alliance measurement and reporting in place to company executives? 
• Do your partners clearly understand what's expected of them and the partnership in order to drive value for your company?
• Do you have documented joint business plans and quarterly business reviews in place for each of your most strategic partnerships?
• Are alliances managed as a portfolio with periodic inspection on performance? Are poor performing alliances addressed or are alliance relationships like the roach motel - they check in but never check out?!  

I'm not saying that doing these things guarantees that alliances will be respected in your organization - but you will at least have done your part to earn the respect, which is "table stakes" for discussions.

We can't expect our organizations to change, if we aren't willing to do so. Change must start with us!

Captains of Change - Part V: Making Course Corrections

In the last several posts, I've been talking about the role Alliance Managers as "captains of change" in managing alliance relationships. This is Part V: Making Course Corrections.

Making course corrections on the journey goes hand in hand with Part III - Measure & Inspect.  As Alliance Managers, once we develop the joint business plan with our partner, we must "inspect what we expect"in order to ensure that our plans are on track and delivering results. You can't know what to correct if you aren't measuring progress and results!

In my company's journey to improve our alliance competencies, we created a process for consistently qualifying, approving and launching joint partner initiatives. We managed these initiatives as a portfolio and measured them against performance standards - revenue, pipeline, sales traction. We discovered that the #1 reason for failure of a partner initiative was lack of sales sponsorship.

The course correction we made was to require a sales executive sponsor for all partner initiatives. This change improved our success rates.

Any successful alliance journey should include course corrections!

Captains of Change - Part IV: Navigate Around Turbulence

Change is the raison d'etre of alliance management. As Alliance Managers, we're constantly managing change. Whenever you embark upon any project involving change, whether it's onboarding a new partner or developing a new solution with an established partner, you are going to encounter "turbulence" - forces working against change. Your job as the Captain of Change is to navigate around the turbulence.

Turbulence is inevitable because people generally abhor change. A former manager of mine talks about "organizational antibodies" that rise up against change. The metaphor is apt, since antibodies are proteins in the immune system that neutralize foreign objects in the body. Organizational antibodies always rise up to neutralize any organizational change viewed as a threat to the status quo.

Seth Godin says it best:

People who fear they will be hurt by a change speak up immediately, loudly and without regard for the odds or reality. People who will benefit from a change don't believe it (until it happens), so they sit quietly. And that's why change in an organization is difficult.

The best way to navigate around this turbulence is to get the "leading 10 percenters" on board first. These are your key influencers, stakeholders and floor leaders. They'll help you get to smoother waters by influencing the "hesitant middle". Sometimes you'll also have to proactively neutralize some of the most virulent antibodies (see my blog post on Toxic People). The most effective neutralizers tend to be facts, excellent execution and successful results.

Your role as Captain is to anticipate the turbulent seas, prepare your team and successfully navigate around (and sometimes through) the rough waters

Next post: Captains of Change - Part V: Making Course Corrections.

Captains of Change - Part III: Measure & Inspect

You must "inspect what you expect" if you want to effectively manage change. This is an important way to build trust. You have to show folks what you're measuring and why and most importantly, what decisions you will be making as a result of the data you are collecting and reporting on.

Measurement also helps you assess if you're on track or if some course corrections might be in order.

And lastly, measuring results, tracking status with visible reporting to management - helps communicate to the troops what measures are important to the leader. What's most effective is personal inspection by the leader - quarterly reviews with the executive, for example. This helps demonstrate the executive's commitment to the change.

Up next - Cheerlead success and navigate around turbulence.

Captains of Change - Part II: Set the Cadence

One of the responsibilities of Alliance Managers in our roles as Captains of Change is to "Set the Cadence". What does this mean?

Setting the cadence is setting the pace of change. It requires having an in depth understanding of both the requirements of the collaboration as well as your company's culture so that you understand what kind of pace is possible. It's understanding what needs to happen and when it needs to happen in order to affect change. It's prodding and encouraging stakeholders to create a sense of urgency when it's necessary and knowing when to take a moment to measure progress.

Up next - Measuring Progress..

Captains of Change - Part I

One of the things I love most about alliance management is that at it's heart, it involves managing and driving change. Think about it, two companies are getting together to create something that they couldn't do on their own. And often getting to that compelling mutual value proposition requires persuading people to change from the status quo.

So, really, alliance managers are "captains of change".

So here's part one on a series on change - the role of the captain. What do alliance manager's need to do to be captains of change?

1. Set the cadence
2. Measure progress
3. Cheerlead successes
4. Inspect what you expect.
5. Navigate around turbulence
6. Make course corrections
7. Ensure safe arrival

More on this on the next post!

Emergency "off switch"

I went on a 12-mile hike on Saturday. It was a beautiful spring day and the scenery was lovely. Our guide was an experienced hiker who was a volunteer who maintains local trails and leads hikes. He had a lot of passion about the outdoors and hiking in particular. His passion was infectious - he motivated me to plan some additional hiking trips for the spring and summer.

What occurred to me is that passionate people make the world go round. Think about it - most of the things we enjoy or that make our lives easier, were created, developed and supported by people with  passion.

As I've mentioned on previous blog posts, the best alliance managers (or doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, housekeepers, etc.) have passion about their jobs. Their switch is in the "on" position.

Beware of those that try to dampen your enthusiasm or extinguish your passion. These people are toxic and should be avoided at all costs. Don't let them into your head and most of all don't let them into your heart. Use your emergency "off switch" to turn these people "off". Protect your passion. Despite the sideline jeering of the lazy cynics, passion is what makes the world go round!

The No Complacency Zone

In the early 90's, I worked for a Branch Manager who was an exceptional leader. His branch was consistently the top ranked sales branch in the region (of 25 branches) and in the years I was there, the branch was the #1 branch office in the country (out of 250 branches).

He was a master both at understanding people and how to best motivate and reward them and in building a high performance culture.

Some of the things he did were completely counter intuitive. For example, during good times - when we were blowing away our numbers - he would be absolutely brutal in our management staff meetings. Maniacally drilling down on the numbers, pipeline, etc. My fellow managers and I would look at each other like we were in the wrong meeting! Conversely, when we were having a tough quarter or two, he would make passing reference to the numbers, but there was no drilling.

I finally came to realize that Harry was building a high performance culture. He did not want anyone in his organization, particularly his management team, to be complacent. He was establishing a "No Complacency" Zone.

A website for safety officers defines complacency as "self-satisfaction, especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies".  Harry knew that complacency is death. It is the beginning of the end. Excellence, innovation and risk taking can not thrive in an environment where complacency lives.

Harry didn't have to apply the hammer during tough times, because he never let us get complacent during the good times.

As you manage your alliance relationships, make sure you establish a "no complacency zone"!

The "hole in the donut"

Do you know someone who revels in pointing out obvious problems with nary a thought of possible solutions?

I worked for a manager back in the early 90's that used to call these people folks who "point at the hole in the donut". He told us not to be caught doing this ......You know this person - Captain Obvious - the one who shows up at the meeting pointing out all the reasons your idea, your partnership, will fail.

As Alliance Managers, we don't have the luxury of simply pointing at the hole in the donut. If there's a hole in the donut, our job is to figure out how to address it, or identify risk factors to help management make go/no go decisions. Our job is to find the path to success...analyze ...problem solve and decide. 

Pointing at the hole in the donut is for the weak, passive and afraid. That's not us!

Out of Your Head - Into Your Heart

I attended a networking luncheon today where the guest speaker was a life coach and personal friend of mine. Her topic was about getting "unstuck" and she said something that  really resonated with me - to get "unstuck" you have to "get out of your head and into your heart".

What does "getting into your heart" have to do with alliance management?

Being good at managing alliances requires passion. I'd argue that being good at anything requires passion. Passion is what keeps you going when the going gets tough and things seem hopeless. You have to have something in you that motivates you, that makes you excited about attacking the day to day challenges.

Finally, as I've stated in other blog posts, fundamentally, alliance managers are leaders. I recently read "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?" by Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM. It chronicles his turnaround of IBM and reads like a manifesto on leadership. In his book, Gertstner states -

Passion is the single most important element of personal leadership. I believe managers at all levels of a company should strive to develop the emotional side of their leadership skills.

When you demonstrate to your internal and external stakeholders the passion you have about the alliance and its possibilities, you pull a powerful lever of influence. Alliance management is all about influencing without authority. Passion is one of the best tools at your disposal.

Note that I'm not talking about manufactured passion. I'm talking about genuine, in your bones, "would you shut up about this already" passion!

Passion is infectious, and it's critical if you want to lead.

Faster Horses

I was in a brainstorming session with colleagues recently to come up with messaging to the field on developing a playbook for working with a partner/competitor. The facilitator led with the below quote from Henry Ford:

"If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'faster horses'".

The point was that to harness the value of co-opetition we have to think differently.

It occurs to me that as alliance managers, we're charged with collaborating with our partners in ways that drive innovation and create value for both companies. Doing this requires creative thinking, busting up the status quo and thinking outside the box.

Getting beyond "faster horses" thinking isn't easy, but that's one of the advantages collaboration with a partner can bring to the table. A fresh perspective and new thinking. And that's what makes our roles as alliance managers so valuable!

Best Practice Makes Perfect?

There was a recent thread on the ASAP (Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals) LinkedIn group about best practices. Here are my thoughts on "best practices in applying best practices"!

• Tailor to the culture of your company. Company culture provides the "current" for implementing best practices. What works at one company, may not work at yours and vice versa. Be sure to think about cultural dynamics when applying best practices and adjust accordingly.
• Use your tailored best practices to develop your alliances playbook. You need some kind of consistent framework for qualifying, developing and executing partner initiatives. The playbook defines how you "get alliances work done around here".
• Combine your best practices playbook with professional development. A great playbook in the hands of unskilled alliance managers will not get you very far. Build a training and professional development plan for the alliances team to help them to understand why these are best practices and how to apply them.
• Build in flexibility. Once size does not fit all alliances. Mike Leonetti, Chairman Emeritus of ASAP, used to say "when you've seen one alliance, you've seen one alliance". 
• Align measurement and comp. Beware the law of unintended consequences. Make sure that your teams are properly incented and that you are measuring what you expect. 

What say you?

Go Ugly Early!

I was speaking to a colleague today and we were comparing notes on the difficulty some alliance managers have in asking the tougher questions in the qualification process. I told him that a sales executive I worked with long ago told me something that has stuck with me ever since.

He told me that the best thing you can do in these situations is to "go ugly early". He told me that he always wants to know what the show stoppers are in month 1 of discussions, vs. month 9.

I told my colleague this story and he laughed. He said that he believed that this was exactly the right perspective. If you're having discussions with a partner about joint development, don't you want to know their position on IP, pretty early in the discussion? It's amazing to me that some alliance folks will say - "oh, I don't want to bring that up now, I might scare them off". I think that's the completely wrong approach. You should be thinking, I want to find out their position (and tell them mine) early, because if we're far apart, I need to know that now.

Being afraid to have a tough conversation, doesn't make the need for the discussion disappear. All you're doing then is kicking the can up the road, only to have to deal with it later, when both parties have invested a lot of time, and perhaps also reinforced some bad assumptions.

Now that's ugly!

Cynicism is not Leadership!

Why is it that often the hopes, dreams and goals that accompany a new year, give way to cynicism before Valentine's Day?

Somehow we sometimes get so beaten down by the status quo, that we think it's "naive" to hope for something more. So we fall into the old patterns of cynicism. "That's the way it's always been around here". "They'll never accept my new idea". "Things will never change".

Well this thinking might be safe, and it's sure a nice place to hide, but it's not leadership.

As alliance managers our job is to lead. To believe that change is possible, that better is possible. I'm not talking about being blind to the realities and challenges of the current environment. I'm talking about being fully cognizant of the obstacles and challenges before you, but deciding that you are going to try to make a difference anyway.

As we attack our alliance plans and strategies for 2011, let's resolve to lead.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! With the New Year comes reflection on 2010 and thoughts about how to improve in 2011.

I had the pleasure today of hearing Debbie Yow deliver a keynote address at a professional women's luncheon. Debbie is the Athletic Director at NC State University, one of only three female ADs in the nation. She's an impressive professional and a pioneer in her field. She delivered an inspiring talk today.

Her words were about success. She laid out a 3 step gameplan, that I believe is particularly prescriptive (and timely) for evaluating alliance relationships.

1. Assess the current state. Honestly and accurately evaluate where you are now.
2. Set the right goals for the right reasons.
3. Guage progress.

She also outlined what she coined "dream killers"

• Tradition. "I honor the past, but I don't want to live there."
• Fear.
• Stereotypes.
• Complacency.
• Fatigue.
• Short term thinking.
• Ineffective communication.
• Lack of vision.

As you evaluate your alliance organization and partnerships, her words would be good to keep in mind...