The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) surveyed its members last month and some of the results are coming out. Two seemingly unrelated items caught my eye and got me thinking. When asked for programming topic suggestions, over three quarters of ASAP members responding listed “measuring the contribution of alliances”. When asked about what ASAP value is most important, members gave the unsolicited answer of “establishing alliance management as a recognized profession”. Taken individually, these data points can be approached with straight-forward programming elements to address the need stated. Taken together, they suggest we need to consider a different approach than we are taking today.

ASAP was of course interested in identifying and prioritizing programming topics. According to the survey results, the number one choice among the 287 respondents for programming topics is “Measuring Alliance contribution (Key metrics, scorecarding)”. Over 76% said that they wanted more information from ASAP websites, chapters and industry councils on how to measure the contribution of alliances and alliance organizations. A similar question posed to ten Alliance VPs by the ASAP Silicon Valley Chapter earlier this year yielded a related response—Alliance Execs listed “communicating the value of alliances” as a key pain or need. Considering the wealth of information available from ASAP and most of the consultant community on the subject of alliance measurement and metrics, this seems surprising, even disappointing. What is driving this need?

Now look at the desire to see alliance management become a recognized profession. A significant number of ASAP member survey respondents mentioned, unsolicited, a desire to see ASAP “help to prominently position the strategic alliance professional in corporate America”. The Silicon Valley survey of Alliance VPs, directors and professionals concluded that a larger, pervasive issue is that Alliance management is still viewed as a “mushy” and “fuzzy” profession that often requires constant justification to non-alliance execs. Perhaps this is the driver for more and more compelling alliance metrics and measurements. Top management, peer management and corporate professionals in general don’t “get” the value of alliances and/or the alliance organization. So, as alliance professionals, we keep searching for that set of metrics that will once and for all convince our colleagues that our alliances, and by extension, we alliance professionals, matter—a lot.

Oddly though, twenty plus years of alliance thinking and ever more detailed and overlapping metrics haven’t made the alliance profession more valued than it is. I wonder if we are being driven by our own insecurities and fears into taking an unproductive or even self-defeating path. I recently asked a company president what he wanted to see from our profession. He immediately replied “I want to see alliance managers make things happen. I want to see deals done and new products launched.” He continued with “please don’t go down the path of the Project Management profession. I’m not looking for people with letters after their names and lots of detailed processes. Just make things happen!” Most business executives would agree. There’s nothing wrong with measuring alliance health and alliance results, but it isn’t the answer to communicating our value and we shouldn’t tie up our alliance people with ever more burdensome metric keeping.

Company presidents, sales executives, marketing directors, product management leaders and operations managers are not clamoring for more metrics as their number one issue. We alliance professionals should focus on delivering results—big, game-changing results. Tracy Goss, in her book, The Last Word on Power suggests making “promises, bold promises” as the way to commit yourself to the kind of “make things happen” results that our business leaders want. She says that “Bold promises are those commitments that you don’t know how to fulfill and therefore become immediate priorities.” Sure, we will probably fall short of our bold promises. But whom would you want working for you? The cautious director who made sure that the only things he committed to were easily fulfilled and rarely significant? Or the alliance leader, who promised monumentally exciting things, made a full commitment to each promise and perhaps fell short of some, but still produced beyond all expectations?
 
As alliance professionals, we should lower the importance of establishing more measures and metrics. Let us worry less about communicating our value to our corporate colleagues. Instead, make bold promises and, with our partners, do whatever it takes to make them happen. Alliances are changing the world and alliances will change your company too. We alliance executives and professionals need to step through our fears and self-view as second class corporate citizens and step into the incredible promise of alliances.
 
Gerry Dehkes
September 17, 2008