PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS NEED A PARTNERING CULTURE
How do they get one? To build a partnering organization that will last longer than a few vision rollout pitches, leaders must create a partnering culture. A partnering culture's purpose is not primarily to eradicate existing subcultures. In fact, a partnering culture both leverages the strengths of legacy subcultures and tames their counterproductive behaviors by replacing them with the productive behaviors of smart partnering. A partnering culture is a governing culture that reduces the risk of the culture wars that typically break out when company leaders decide to drive "new culture" into an organization. A partnering culture aims first at expediting internal alliances among an organization's diverse functions and second at extending the same partnering expertise externally to forge mutually beneficial relationships with other companies.
Given the level of impact that leadership behaviors have on forming and sustaining any organization culture, as discussed in Chapter 1, leaders who want to create a partnering culture must be willing to modify their own behaviors and invest resources in installing the infrastructure and processes required for building the organization's partnering quotient, or PQ. Since it is not businesses that partner, but rather people who partner, this approach to organization culture change implies that each person in the enterprise— beginning with the leadership team—works in a systematic way to understand and develop his or her individual PQ. A practical means of helping people understand their partnering strengths and weaknesses is Stephen Dent's Partnering Quotient AssessmentTM (the PQ AssessmentTM, a self-assessment of the Six Partnering Attributes: Self Disclosure and Feedback, Win-Win Orientation, Ability to Trust, Future Orientation, Comfort with Change, and Comfort with Interdependence.[*] Table 2 summarizes how these six attributes of Partnering Intelligence are linked to the behavioral characteristics of a partnering organization listed in Table 1.
| PARTNERING ORGANIZATION | PARTNERING ATTRIBUTE |
|---|---|
| Self-discloses information freely and gives feedback straightforwardly | Self-Disclosure and Feedback |
| Solves problems creatively and resolves conflicts collaboratively, creating winners, not losers | Win-Win Orientation |
| Builds trust through both words and actions | Ability to Trust |
| Embraces the future with a clear vision | Future Orientation |
| Encourages and welcomes change | Comfort with Change |
| Champions interreliance with others for key results | Comfort with Interdependence |
Remember, in that a partnering culture is a governing culture, its highest value is combining the greatest strengths of each of its subcultures. A partnering culture fosters collaboration among existing subcultures, rather than cutthroat competition. Rewiring an organization for a partnering culture does not mandate the rooting out and extermination of various legacy subcultures. Rather, it taps and catalyzes the energy of the divergent subcultures. We do want R&D explorers to stare off into space, imagining new product and service offerings; we do need engineers to fret about the seventh decimal place in an equation for calculating sheer; we do require a marketing and sales team that chomps at the bit to sell more widgets; and we must have enablers such as financial analysts, information technologists, and human resources professionals to serve as organizational glue.
Because of the systematic nature of the Six Partnering Attributes, each of the characteristics contributes to a complex web of interactions between people. For simplicity, we have made explicit connections in Table 2 only to the dominant links. For example, Self-Disclosure and Feedback and Future Orientation constitute overriding links among the six characteristics of a partnering organization because envisioning an inspiring future depends on both letting go of the past and exchanging information freely and collaboratively. Thus, although Self-Disclosure and Feedback and Future Orientation play primary roles, the other four attributes also contribute to the success of an inspired vision. Following is an overview of each of the Six Partnering Attributes.
Self-Disclosure and Feedback
Unless our partners are like the Vulcans on Star Trek, proficient in the telepathic art of "mind melding," the only way for our partners to know what we need or want is by our telling them. Self-disclosure represents the initial opportunity to form trust in a relationship. The more information you reveal to your partners about yourself, the more your partners will trust you, and the more readily they will open up to you. Self-disclosure sets the stage for giving and receiving feedback, crucial to airing and resolving conflicts. If you cannot safely provide feedback to partners on their behavior, you must suppress your opinions and feelings. Such restraint invariably leads to resentment, a breakdown in communication, and counterproductive behaviors. The partnering culture attribute Self-Disclosure and Feedback enables each of the diverse subcultures of a company to get its needs met, the fundamental purpose of partnering. Moreover, in successful partnerships, self-disclosure and feedback are conscious acts. Disclosing our wants and needs, thoughts and feelings, strengths and weaknesses is essential if all parties are to achieve their goals and obtain mutual benefits.
Win-Win Orientation
Creating win-win outcomes goes to the heart of a partnering culture. Acting in a win-win manner means that you use problem-solving and conflict resolution strategies that benefit all parties involved. Remember, partnerships are formed to fulfill needs. The two primary desired outcomes of a win-win orientation are therefore getting your needs met and getting your partner's needs met. How each of us gets these needs met forms a vital ingredient in the system that creates productive and successful partnerships. Solving task-related problems involves the same kinds of approaches required to resolve interpersonal conflicts. Regardless of the nature of the problem, task or relationship, you want to resolve it in a way that meets your needs. When others are also at the table, they too will want to ensure that their needs are met. If the two sets of needs initially seem to be incompatible, the partnering culture attribute Win-Win Orientation is essential. We are not born with the negotiating skills needed to achieve outcomes that are mutually beneficial; we must learn them and get better and better at them.
Ability to Trust
In interacting with others, our safety and well-being depend on our ability to interpret correctly a complex, shifting system of symbols and signals. As we grow, we discover with whom we are safe and with whom we are in danger. We learn what we can do and what kinds of reactions we can provoke in others. This system of reliable responses binds together our social order. We call it trust. When we violate established norms and expectations, we confuse and upset others. Such a rupture in these ground rules is typically sensed as a violation of trust. In business, establishing and maintaining trust is often difficult. A competitive culture rewards enterprises that act in new and unpredictable ways, often with little regard for the comfort of its people, its customers, or its competitors. The partnering culture attribute Ability to Trust forms the foundation of a work climate in which people know and appreciate the limits of reliability and can be sure that these borders will be respected. Trust is the one characteristic of a partnering culture that is at once both an input into the partnership and an output of the partnership. Trust encourages harmony and generosity. A lack of trust sometimes leads to people acting in angry, hostile, or other counterproductive ways. The people in an organization build trust when they consistently satisfy each other's expectations. Only one experience of betrayal will threaten even the best-crafted partnership.
Future Orientation
Having a past or future orientation sets the overall tone for a relationship, the background music of personal interactions, whether harmonious or harsh. Since partnerships are organic in nature, it can determine in large part whether or not the relationship will succeed. Our orientation toward the past or toward the future determines many aspects of a partnership before we even sit down to work with our partners. It determines how flexible and trusting we are likely to be and, in particular, how much risk we are willing to take. If the leaders of an organization have a past orientation, the business typically runs as a closed system. People in such a company have difficulty with change and fight to maintain the status quo. Decisions come from the top down, and there is little genuine communication between managers and workers. Functional groups behave as fiefdoms. Managers battle for resources. It is all a zero-sum game. Smart partners, on the contrary, know themselves well enough to keep from getting trapped in the past, and they trust themselves to make new plans and try innovative approaches. Like trust, the partnering culture attribute Future Orientation serves as a kind of lubricant for the organization. If a business has a past orientation, it tends to impose past experience on new situations. If it has a future orientation, it is more likely to see the possibilities in new situations and approach them with hope and good faith. A future orientation shouts, "Go for it!"
Comfort with Change
Over 2,500 years ago the Greek philosopher Heraclitus noted that nothing is permanent except change. Accelerating social and technological changes continue to barrage us. We change computers, cars, and jobs with ever-increasing speed. Organizations respond to this continual change in various ways: some strive to minimize change, while others enthusiastically embrace it, even create it. In any event, change happens. The key to coping with changing relationships and a changing business landscape is to remember that although we may not always be able to control change, we can manage how we respond to it, productively or counterproductively. Because enterprises today are drenched with changes, the partnering culture attribute Comfort with Change enables an organization to identify obstacles to change, develop strategies for coping with them, and formulate action plans for implementing desired business changes. In the broadest sense, the perceived need to do something differently drives the formation of partnerships. Just like individuals, organizations need change and renewal. Survival, reinvigoration, or growth determines why an organization might risk reaching out to form a partnership or strategic alliance. Each business partner wants something it cannot get, or get easily, on its own. This act of reaching out, of being willing to do something differently, in and of itself will disrupt the status quo and precipitate change.
Comfort with Interdependence
In Western cultures we do not use the word interdependence much. We champion individuals and we have built societies and explored the globe by hard work and independence. We value making it on our own—"I'd rather do it myself"—and we "look out for number one." Other cultures value independence to a lesser degree. People share resources and rely on one another to get their mutual needs met. What benefits the group benefits its individuals, and vice versa. This mutuality forms the essence of interdependence. The marketplaces of the twentieth century thrived on independence and competition. Today, however, with exploding technologies and growing demand for complex goods and services, businesses are finding that they cannot satisfy all their operating needs. The partnering culture attribute Comfort with Interdependence encourages enterprises both to do business differently inside and to look outside for new kinds of strategic partners. When leaders value interdependence, they create an environment that encourages involvement. With that participation comes a sense that we're all in this together, and information and other resources flow freely. Our comfort with interdependence thus serves as the heart of the marketplace component of organization culture. These collaborative strategies require us to create partnerships in which all sides profit from our mutual success. Achieving interdependence does not happen by a top-floor fiat to partner. Interdependence is an active, ongoing process that requires all parties to move apace from initial independence to vibrant collaboration.
[*]For more detailed information on the Six Partnering Attributes, see Stephen M. Dent, Partnering Intelligence, 2d ed. (Palo Alto.CA: Davies-Black Publishing, 2004).
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 94