1. Strategic People Management & Talent Acquisition.
Improving Partnership Effectiveness
If you or your colleagues have ever thought or said any of the following,
or anything similar, then we can definitely help you…..
…. “we outsourced a key function a year ago but the relations between our staff and the
provider don’t seem to be working well as well as we had expected - in fact, relations seem
to be characterised by unreliability and mistrust”
…. “ we still seem to encounter resistance and misunderstandings even though we are trying
to work in partnership mode with our employee representatives”
….. “ now that we have cracked the commercial aspects of the deal, this partnership is all set
to go…. we need to pull together the key people from both sides who are going to have to
make it work…. they’ll need to get to know each other and to work out how what they will be
needing and expecting from each other…”
We have a range of experience of providing advice and hands-on support to
improve “partnership” effectiveness.
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2. Strategic People Management & Talent Acquisition.
It is ever more common to find two more groups from different parts of the same
organisation having to work together to deliver outcomes that none of the groups can
separately deliver. For example, Groups from Finance, HR and Procurement may need to
work together to source and introduce various important new business information systems
e.g. new payroll system.
In addition, it is also increasingly common to find that 2 or more groups from completely
separate organisations have to work together to jointly implement partnership or cooperation
agreements reached by their respective Boards / Executives.
This is increasingly so with the National Health Service in the UK, and in many other
areas within the public sector in particular.
In addition, there are “hybrid” examples of the above, such as in pre- and post-acquisition
situations where groups from previously separate organisations find they need to work
“in partnership” with each other towards the overarching goals of the newly created larger
entity.
And of course, there are many situations where trades unions (or other employee
representative groups) and managements strive to work together through either formal
partnership agreements or based on mutual aspirations for a “partnership approach” to their
relationship.
More often than not, groups of people in these kinds of situations do enter the situations with
goodwill and do endeavour to work together cooperatively to deliver their shared tasks.
However, whenever groups interact, certain powerful human dynamics have the
potential to emerge (usually unconsciously). Furthermore, unfortunately there is always
the potential for these to undermine relationships and the ability to get things done together.
As a simple example, groups often have a default orientation towards other groups of “us
good, them bad”.
If these features of intra-group and inter-group relations remain unacknowledged and
unmanaged, they can cause groups to experience ongoing difficulty in working effectively
with each other.
Because of this, it makes sense for leaders to look systematically and explicitly at the effect
these forces might have on the ability of individuals and groups within partnerships to work
well together.
In work situations though, we can be so focused on our wish to “get things done” that, with
admirable action bias, we push ahead – but without taking the time to think sufficiently
deeply about the human context in which we will be operating. This includes not taking
sufficient time to develop and maintain clarity around the partnership parties’ respective
roles and the expectations that the parties have of each other.
Unfortunately, if we push ahead in this way we heighten the potential for the partnership
situation to evolve into mutual disappointment or mistrust. And we increase the likelihood
that the partnership will fail to achieve what we want it to achieve.
It could be thought of as similar to setting out for the moon without taking account of the
gravitational forces that exist within the solar system.
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3. Strategic People Management & Talent Acquisition.
It is almost always worthwhile investing in improving
“partnership” effectiveness
We have a range of experience of providing advice and hands-on support to improve
“partnership” effectiveness.
Our Services:
1) “PARTNERSHIP” EFFECTIVENESS SUPPORT SERVICES
• Partnership Effectiveness Consulting to Partnership Leaders
• Partnership Effectiveness Coaching to individual “partnership
participants”
2) “PARTNERSHIP” EFFECTIVENESS WORKSHOPS
- key representatives from all parties attending together
- different types of workshop for different types of issues / contexts
- focus on partnership effectiveness and on real work issues
 PARTNERSHIP LAUNCH-PAD workshop
- a first workshop, but for newly formed partnerships
 PARTNERSHIP REFRESH workshop
- a review & planning workshop, for established
partnerships
 PARTNERSHIP BOOSTER workshops
- after Launch-pad or Refresh workshops
FAQ - WHAT HAPPENS DURING PARTNERSHIP WORKSHOPS?
• Growth in partnership effectiveness and progress on real-work issues is achieved
through a customised combination of :
 facilitated review of “partnership” drivers and purposes
 facilitated exchange of aspirations and expectations
 facilitated role clarification
 facilitated problem structuring / problem solving
 facilitated review of group process
 short knowledge inputs; provision of models
 facilitated review of pertinent case studies
 interpersonal awareness activities
 games, social interaction.
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