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?"

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!

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.