So who, exactly, should I be meeting with? Who are the right people? How do I know? What should I be saying? How should I be treating them; like suppliers or like customers? What should I be trying to accomplish? I don't have a lot of time for this, so I don't want to waste my time with the wrong people. I also don't want to get sucked into every discussion, and I certainly don't want to become the mediator of every conflict that comes along.
I know I need to make sure we get every drop of value from this alliance. I just don't know what I should, or what I can, do.
What if ... It would be a huge relief to know my role in this. I'd enjoy working with partners if I knew what I was meant to do. It would be great to play a key role in making the partnership a success. I'd feel more confident if someone gave me the right preparation; so I understood the partner's organization structure, who I'm talking to, which issues are hot, and how we want them resolved. I'd love to be an internal cheerleader for the alliance - that's my role as leader of the business. I just need a little more guidance here.
Solution: The role of a business leader is to influence others (the partner and internal) to take the actions necessary for alliance success. A business leader should help provide visibility for the alliance and reinforce it's importance. He or she should instill a vision for the alliance among others and help them understand its relevance to their success. The leader should also foster an environment where conflicts are resolved quickly, smoothly, and at the lowest possible level within the organization.
This requires a clear plan. It also requires support from the alliance team.
Details
Step 1: Know the actions necessary for alliance success and who is expected to take them
Business leaders need to support their alliances by influencing specific outcomes; vague notions like “show support” are simply empty phrases. The alliance management team should lead business managers through a process of converting market strategies into a detailed alliance plan. The alliance plan must identify the roles you expect the partner to play, and the roles your company will play. It has to define how these players will be supported, and it should describe why taking these desired actions will be in the best interest of the person being asked to take them.
Business leaders need this information. What are we asking people to do? Who are we asking? Why do we think they’ll do it?
Step 2: Understand the overall campaign to influence people’s actions
A business leader’s actions are part of a broader context. To be effective it is best to explicitly define and coordinate that context. Clearly define the messages that different audiences need to hear. Identify the people who will be the most influential in carrying those messages to each audience. Coordinate the role of the business leader with the others who will be communicating your messages.
The influence plan should address the key players within your partner’s organization - key individuals whose actions you need and those who influence these individuals. Typically, a business leader’s role is to influence the influencers. They need to convince your partner’s executives to enthusiastically support the alliance and drive the right behaviors within their company. But your business leaders also need to influence action within your own company. They need to encourage internal support and help drive the specific actions required from internal groups.
The business leader needs to know what behaviors they are meant to drive, what messages they need to communicate, and how their influence will fit into the overall influence campaign.
Step 3: Build appropriate peer-to-peer relationships
Be proactive. The alliance strategy and the influence campaign plan will have identified partner actions and key players. Proactively build peer-to-peer relationships with key partner executives. If you need your partner’s developers to collaborate with yours, forge a relationship between the heads of your respective development teams. If you need actions from their sales team, forge a relationship between your sales lead and theirs.
Don’t be misled by titles. Evaluate “peers” based on similar job scope. The CEO of a smaller company may match up with the General Manager of a division of a multi-national. Try to put egos aside; the General Manager of the multi-national may not be a CEO, but he or she may run a $6 Billion business. Similarly, an Executive Director in a large development organization may match up with the Vice President of R&D for a smaller company.
Business leaders need a clear understanding of who their “peer” is. They need guidance and support in identifying the right people and initiating a relationship.
Step 4: Know what formal escalation process has been agreed to
The business leader should be proactive in advocating proper use of the agreed-to escalation process, and should encourage problem resolution at the lowest level. The escalation process should be written and widely known. When problems get escalated to them, business leaders should first probe to see if every effort was previously made to resolve them. When alliances develop the discipline of lowest-level conflict resolution business leaders are better able to maintain positive relationships with your partner. If issues do escalate to them they know their attention is really warranted.
Business leaders need to know the problem escalation process.
Step 5: Conduct regular executive-level joint reviews of the alliance
Executive relationships can have two distinct parts: the business part and the social part. It is often useful to use social venues to allow executives to develop personal relationships, beyond the business issue of the day. But they need to have a business relationship as well. They need to discuss the alliance, ensure alignment around the alliance goals, and discuss areas where improvement is needed.
Regularly scheduled executive-level reviews provide the opportunity to nurture these business relationships. Both alliance teams should, jointly, present the status of the alliance to the combined executive teams. The executives should sit shoulder-to-shoulder in joint review of the progress. This creates an environment where the partners are jointly addressing their shared problems. Without regular joint reviews, the impetus to meet is usually some problem and the meeting takes on a more adversarial nature.
Schedule regular reviews to allow executives to build positive collaborative relationships.