Survival Tips for "Flying Solo" in an Alliance

I often say that the alliance manager plays a role similar to an airplane pilot when it comes to managing a strategic alliance relationship. Like pilots, alliance managers are responsible for getting the alliance "off the ground", navigating the partnership through turbulence and weather conditions (changing market conditions, competing interests, conflicting organizational models, competitive threats, etc.), and "landing safely" (delivering the goals of the alliance).

Throughout the flight, we have to get our passengers - internal and external stakeholders (sales, marketing, legal, professional services, etc.) aligned so we can achieve alliance results. During most flights, an airplane will be off course for about 95% of its flight. Similarly, during the life of an alliance, the alliance manager has to work continuously to keep the partnership on course. Alliance management, like fllying looks effortless, but doing it well requires a lot of skill and expertise.

Pilots usually partner with skilled co-pilots to build successful flight plans and coordinate actions during flight. Alliance managers on strategic, complex partnerships also work with a "co-pilot" - their alliance counterpart at the partner's organization - to help build the joint alliance plan, manage conflict, and navigate the partnership.

But what do you do when you are "flying solo" - when you don't have an alliance manager assigned to the partnership from the partner's company?

1. Determine if you're flying a "Cessna or a Dreamliner". 
• If this is "Cessna" - a partnership with a start-up or a small partner - it's highly unlikely that they'll have a full time alliance manager on staff. Just make sure the person they assign to work with you on the partnership has authority to make decisions and expect that you are going to have to lead the joint development and execution process. If this is a "Dreamliner", and this is a strategic partnership with a large company, you are going to need a skilled co-pilot to get this thing off the ground. Without one, expect a very bumpy ride.
2. Build your Flight Plan. 
• Weather you're flying a Cessna or a Dreamliner, if you're flying solo you really need to make sure you have a flight plan. Your flight plan, or alliance execution plan is what you'll use to ensure you get to your destination. Without a co-pilot, you'll be doing most of the heavy lifting. 
3. Communicate frequently with the "Control Tower". 
• Identify and build strong connections and relationships with executive sponsors at the partner's company. Without an alliance counterpart, you'll might not get a lot of assistance navigating the partner organization and building executive relationships, but it will be critical that you identify executive sponsors and get them connected with their counterparts within your company. You will need to ensure that you understand their interests and that you align the partner plan to support their interests and the interests of your internal sponsors.
4. Plan for turbulence. 
• Even under the best of circumstances, alliance management can be challenging work with lots of ups and downs. Good alliance managers always plan for contingencies and identify and manage risk. Flying solo adds another level of risk to the flight, so you'll need to set expectations with your executive sponsors accordingly. 

Follow these survival tips and you'll help guide your partnership through friendlier skies!

Top 5 Things Your Executives Need to Know About Alliances, #5 It's Not (just) About Us!

It's Not (just) About Us!

To get what we want in a partnership, we have to have at least passing interest in what our partner wants. This seems like such a simple concept, but it's amazing how many executives lose sight of this. As alliance professionals, if we're advocating for the partner, it's not because we've "gone native", its because we recognize that if we don't work within our organization to ensure that our partner's interests are being met, we will never get the partner to deliver to our interests.

Alliance management is about aligning interests - ours and theirs. We have to be clear about what we want, and we have to be equally as clear about what our partner wants.

I worked with a sales exec many years ago who was fond of saying "bad deals don't last" - meaning that if we use short term leverage to coerce our partners into getting what we want, while completely subordinating their urgent interests, the partner will always find a way out of the deal, I don't care what's in the contract.

So, if this is a partnership we care about - one where they have something to offer that we need (is there any other kind?) - then we must attend to their interests. When we are at the table with our partner, putting our interests on the table and looking for alignment on mutual interests, then and only then, will we have a shot at realizing the potential of the alliance relationship.

So, the next time you are in a meeting with a partner executive, sometimes the best question you can ask them is "What do you want?"

Top 5 Things Your Executives Need to Know about Alliances - #2

    Alliances are a Team Sport

The alliances organization is a completely dependent organization  – that is to say, we are completely dependent upon the involvement of other organizations to successfully develop and execute alliances. When we make a commitment to a partner, we are making a corporate commitment to that partner on behalf of our company. This means that many organizations at our company (sales, product marketing, product management, professional services, legal, field marketing, external communications, etc.) have a role to play and will be engaged early and often as we establish and develop partnerships.

Therefore, as an executive, in order to ensure high performing alliances, it's not only important that you have strong collaboration skills within your alliances organization, you must also ensure that these skills permeate across the company. You want an "alliance aware" organization - where all the departments that are involved in establishing and developing alliances understand how to collaborate, manage conflict, ensure alignment and drive positive outcomes for BOTH companies.

Alliances are a team sport!

Next post: #3 Alliances Make the Pie Bigger

Managing Differences - Job #1

One of my most important takeaways from Vantage Partner's Alliance University last month was the whole idea that alliances at their core, are about managing differences.

We've all heard people say that alliances are all about "finding the win-win", "looking for the joint value proposition", finding "common ground" and the like. It turns out, that while those things are important, even necessary in forging an alliance relationship, they are not sufficient.

Why?

Well, think about it. According to various studies, alliances have a 50% (or higher depending on the study) failure rate. Presumably, the alliances formed based on identified "common ground" or compelling "joint value proposition", but they didn't last. When I look back at failed partnerships in my 15+ years in alliances, the root cause of the failures was a lack of attention paid to the differences between the two organizations.

Alliance managers sit in between two organizations with different structures, business models, politics, org charts, policies, cultures, philosophies, processes, contracts, etc. etc. The list of differences is usually longer than the list of things we have in common!

When we just focus on the things we have in common, the things our two companies are completely aligned on, and ignore the long list of things where we are not aligned - where we have differences - we are inviting the inevitable conflict. Often that conflict simmers under the surface, but it is always there, like a cancer on the alliance relationship. Left untreated, the patient - our partnership - dies.

Instead, we should proactively, deliberately and intentionally, work with our partner to identify our areas of difference, with particular focus on those areas that are likely to cause conflict. It is a fool's errand to pretend that we can wish away or hope away these differences. A better strategy is to face them head on, and talk openly as a joint team about how we can manage these differences.

Managing differences is job #1 for alliance managers!

Curiosity Killed the Cat (but Saved the Alliance)

More from Vantage Partner's Alliance University class delivered by Stu Kliman.

Curiosity - genuine and honest curiosity, is a critical mindset for successful alliance managers. This is the mindset for effective conflict resolution. Why?

When we are in the midst of conflict with our partner or with an internal stakeholder, we tend to assume our intentions are good (and we are "right"), but we don't always extend the benefit of the doubt to our partners. We assume we understand their intentions (bad) and that we are in full possession of all the facts.

The fact is, the only thing we know with certainty is what's going on in our own head!

Understanding our partner's interests and intents requires breaking through our "certainty" and adopting a mindset of curiosity. "Hmmn, she has a completely different take on this situation than I do. I wonder what data she's looking at? I wonder what's her reasoning is? I wonder why she feels this way". These are the questions that start a learning dialog.

And curiosity, genuine and true curiosity about our partners interests and intents, is the starting point to resolving conflict in our alliance relationships.

Mind the Gap

Stu Kliman from Vantage Partners did an excellent session for our alliances organization last week on conflict management and resolution. My takeaways from this session, which we called SAS Alliance University, will be the subject of several blog posts.

My first takeaway I call "Mind The Gap". No, not the ubiquitous retail store!

Stu kicked off the session with a video of a difficult conversation between two alliance managers and he asked us to identify "helpful and unhelpful" behaviors. We all proceeded to diagnose the root causes of the conflict and develop a list of the "unhelpful" comments from both parties.

Stu posited that if you could put these two alliance managers in our class and have them watch the same video, they would have no problem identifying the problem behaviors. In other words, "out of the moment" they could dispassionately diagnose the "good, the bad and the ugly." We are the same way - often we know what the right thing thing to do is, but in the moment, we fail to do the right thing.

Why?

When we are in conflict ridden alliance conversations, the stakes are usually high. The success of the alliance is often on the line, and the expectations and pressure to deliver are high. This ratchets up our emotions and increases the likelihood of a bad outcome.

Stu calls this phenomenon - the "gap between our espoused beliefs and our practiced beliefs."

What does it require to close this gap? Humility and deliberate, intentional effort to practice good conflict management and resolution techniques. I'll cover these in subsequent posts.

Ironically, the more arrogant someone is about their conflict management skills, the larger the gap is between their espoused and practiced beliefs! To develop your alliance skills in this area - mind the gap!

Zero Sum Game

I think you can boil down most of the issues we face in alliance management to "scarcity mentality". Folks with scarcity mentality view life (and alliances) as a zero sum game. If you win, I lose. If I win, you lose.

Those who view the world from this perspective, have a very hard time collaborating. Viewing partnerships from this prism causes their mindset to be very self focused and "shrinks" their universe. Their "pie" is small, and their life is a constant battle to win turf, presumably at the expense of someone else. It's hard to think creatively about options and fresh new approaches when crouched in the fighting stance ready for battle!

The best cultural mindset for positive partnering and collaboration is an "abundance" mindset. You can always tell when you are dealing with a partner with this mentality. The possibilities are limitless. Collaboration with them is about making the pie bigger, not fighting over pieces of a small pie.

Let's do all we can as alliance managers to promote this mindset in our organizations - and be sure that we walk in this mindset ourselves.

The Bermuda Triangle and partner triangulation

According to Wikipedia "The Bermuda Triangle is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances.


The "Alliance Bermuda Triangle" is typically where partners wind up when attempting "triangulation" - the pursuit of that elusive holy grail resulting from the coming together of 3 companies.


It typically goes like this..... you're working with a partner on an initiative, and he mentions, "hey, we have a partnership with Acme Technologies, we should loop them in to our discussions.  There's typically lots of enthusiasm in the beginning after a series of exploratory discussions...Lots of IGBG - "it's gonna be great" and then..... nothing.


Why? Because getting alignment between two companies is challenging enough. Adding a third to the mix increases the complexity (and risk) by an order of magnitude.


I'm not saying it can't work... I've seen a few. Just know what you're getting into, ask a lot of questions and set expectations all around.

Top 5 Things to Know About Alliances!

Happy New Year to my fellow alliance professionals! After a hiatus and the holiday break, I'm back in the blogger's chair.. 


As we are all in the midst of our 2012 joint business planning efforts with our partners, it's a good time for a few reminders to our alliance stakeholders about what's involved in establishing and developing partnerships. 

To that end, I bring you - The Top 5 Things Stakeholders Should Know About Alliances.

1.       Alliance Relationships Require Care and Feeding

Alliance relationships are much like personal relationships, they require care and feeding to establish and grow. Alliance relationships are made up of a series of personal relationships between executives and stakeholders at both companies. Managing these relationships, developing the shared vision and constructing and executing the joint business plan, is the raison d’etre of the Alliance Manager. All alliances are established based on a promise of mutual value. The role of the Alliance Manager is “value creation” – orchestrating resources, aligning strategic goals, managing conflict to ensure that your company (and the partner) deliver increased value to our customers.

2.       It takes a village

In today’s increasingly complex and interdependent world, it often “takes a village” to deliver a complete solution to the customer. For example, your company may have world class technologies and solutions in multiple industries and horizontal domains. Your partners may bring strong business consulting and domain expertise, scalable delivery capability, complementary technologies and solutions and in many cases, supplementary understanding of your customers’ business issues and environments.

Together with your partner ecosystem, your company is able to extend its capabilities to maximize value to the customer.

3.       Customer demand often drives partnerships

Your customers might express a need for a third party provider’s unique and niche capabilities and may request integration of the third party’s software with yours. Or your Partner’s customer may be making the same request of your partner. Or your company may identify a need to collaborate with a third party to address market demand driven by customer requirements in a certain industry or domain. These are the three major drivers of partnerships.

4.       Alliances help drive innovation!

At SAS, we are collaborating with partners in many of our key technology innovations (e.g. high performance computing) and partners also provide benchmarking/tuning/optimization and new technology adoption support.

In addition to supporting your company's technology innovation, partners also help identify new opportunities, in which we collaborate to deliver joint initiatives. 

5.       Alliance Management is profession! 

Most of the alliance professionals in SAS Global Alliances and Channels division are certified alliance professionals, who have earned their certification through The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP). ASAP is the largest global professional organization dedicated to alliance formation and management. Additionally, SAS is a Global Sponsor of ASAP and we have been encouraging our key partners to become members as well. We leverage ASAP best practices in our work. This helps both our partner community and by extension, our customers, because as a result, we are able to more effectively develop partnerships to create and deliver innovative solutions for our customers.

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…

The Truth and Track Shoes



I had a recent conversation with a Global Alliance Manager who manages our partnership with a company that happens to be both our biggest partner and our biggest competitor. You can imagine what her days are like.

She told me that a story had been circulating that this partner "poached" one of our people and for this reason, one of our country managers had issued a "cease and desist" order to his team to "stop all strategic work" with this partner.

Of course, this edict was issued pre-fact finding mission. Turns out that the employee had posted for the job. There was no poaching. Oh, and that we'd recently hired 5 folks in this country from this partner, so apparently we'd been doing some "poaching" of our own. Oops. Never mind. Literally a lie traveled around the world before the truth got its track shoes on.

It occurs to me that when we talk about managing co-opetition, mostly we talk about operational considerations (ensuring we have proper firewalls, managing and protecting IP, etc. etc.)..

Seems to me that the biggest hurdle, and the thing that requires the most vigilant focus, is managing the rumor mill, lowering the emotional temperature by applying liberal doses of fact and overall paranoia management. Now that is a full time job.