How do you build trust in an alliance relationship?

I've done a few posts on the topic of trust because it is so critical in cementing a successful partnership. Trust takes time to build, but it can be destroyed in an instant. We all know how powerful trust is, but what can we do as alliance managers to lay a foundation for trust?

Everything we need to know about building trust we learned in kindergarten:

Lying is bad. 
It would seem to go without saying, but being honest with our partners goes a long way in building trust. Sometimes when we have bad news, the tendency we have is to avoid the truth, or worse, shade the truth. The partner wants to focus on the retail sector and your retail sales director wants to work with another partner. Or the partner wants me to kick in $2M to a matching market development fund and my finance guy says we can only do $1M. Or, or or... pick your bad news. I tell the partner the bad news early. I worked with an exec who used to use the phrase "go ugly early" - meaning if you've got bad news, get it out of the way early. Nothing builds trust faster than being honest about bad news.

If you bully people, they won't like you.
Have you ever had to partner with a company that was much larger than yours? Or that had a dominant market position? Did they let you know it? When you throw your weight around without any sensitivity for the needs and concerns of your partner, they'll feel taken advantage of.

Say you're sorry when you make a mistake.
Sometimes despite our best efforts, we make a mistake. We forget to engage a key stakeholder. We neglect to inform the partner about an important change in policy or personnel. Or maybe we didn't actually make a mistake, but our partner feels aggrieved. In either case, a genuine, heartfelt apology will go a long way to restoring or building trust.


Say what you mean and mean what you say.
This is a bit of a corollary to the first rule, but being clear in your communications with the partner is critical. I can recall many a kerfluffle that I unnecessarily caused by being loose with an email or phone conversation.


Some more tactical/practical thoughts on building trust in the next blog post...