PARTNERING COMPETENCIES
People partner. If you want to build a partnering organization, you must hire, grow, and keep either people who are already smart partners or people who are capable of rapidly—and cost-effectively— becoming smart partners. The preliminary steps discussed in Chapter 5 include
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Establishing a strategic framework that espouses the values of smart partnering
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Implementing a systematic partnering process such as smart partnering
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Reshaping the organization as a partnering network to enable connections among people
Yet none of these necessary steps for building a partnering organization mean much unless the people behave as smart partners, internally and externally, day in and day out. When the people of a company are behaving as smart partners every day, then partnering will have become "how things are done around here." The organization will have created a partnering culture.
Generic core competencies such as accountability and specific technical competencies such as negotiation skills will of course continue to be necessary for successful job performance, but they will no longer be sufficient for sustaining success in the Dual Age of Information and Connections. To build a partnering organization, twenty-first-century leaders will have to incorporate a set of partnering competencies into the mix of selection and development criteria. Some organizations have already begun to include partnering-related competencies as elements in their competency models. For example, many companies we have worked with have included win-win negotiation as a specific core organizational competency. All we are suggesting is that these kinds of partnering-related competencies be filled out with some or all of the partnering competencies derived from the Six Partnering Attributes.
Based on statistical analysis of the results of thousands of Partnering Quotient (PQ) Assessments we have administered over the past five years and on anecdotal evidence we have gathered in working with client companies over the last twenty, we have put together a suite of six partnering competencies (each derived from one of the Six Partnering Attributes) and a comprehensive set of behavioral indicators for each of the partnering competencies. For simplicity, we have designated the six partnering competencies by the same names.
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Self-Disclosure and Feedback: promoting the frequent, open, mutual exchange of business information, points of view, and performance feedback
Self-Disclosure and Feedback is the cornerstone of every successful partnership. Demonstrating the behaviors associated with this competency is the first step in becoming a smart partner, a more effective partner. Self-disclosure offers the first opportunity to build trust in a partnership. The more information you reveal about yourself to your partners, the more your partners will trust you, and the more readily they will reveal information to you. The more potential partners know about your needs, the greater the chance that they can help figure out a way you can get those needs met. The ability to give partners feedback is also crucial to sustaining a successful partnership. If you cannot provide feedback to your partners on their behavior, especially in conflict situations, you must suppress your feelings, an action that will inevitably lead to resentment, a breakdown in communication, and counterproductive behavior on your part. Also, how you receive feedback from your partners will determine to a great degree the environment you create for future feedback you must give to your partners. If you expect your partners to receive and view your feedback as a gift, you must likewise encourage and accept their feedback as a gift.
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Win-Win Orientation: pursuing objectives, solving problems, and resolving conflicts in a collaborative manner that consistently creates winners all around
Creating win-win outcomes is an overriding objective in any successful partnership. Partnerships that produce losers are destined to fail, usually sooner rather than later. For a partnership to thrive and grow, each partner must feel like a winner, and each partner must believe that he or she has personally contributed to making the other partners also feel like winners. Having a win-win orientation means using problem-solving and conflict resolution strategies that solve problems and resolve issues in a manner in which everyone feels like they win. When you and your partner have the same, or similar, objectives, creating a win-win outcome is a breeze. But if you and your partner have different needs, perhaps not mutually compatible, you will have to use win-win strategies to ensure that all involved get their needs met. Whatever your preferred style for solving problems and resolving conflicts, you can learn more effective strategies to ensure win-win outcomes. Remember, partnerships are formed to fulfill specific needs. How we get these needs met becomes part of the system that creates and sustains productive partnerships.
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Ability to Trust: giving trust unreservedly, honoring one's commitments, and acting in a manner that builds one's personal credibility
Of all the dynamics involved in smart partnering, trust is the single most crucial. Trust is the system of reliable responses that binds together social orders. It can be thought of as the climate of a relationship, and it is shaped by what you and your partner say or do not say, or do or do not do, within the context of the partnership. If you violate a norm or expectation you have established, or when you act arbitrarily or beyond the limits of your usual behavior patterns, whether intentionally or accidentally, you can confuse and upset others. Trust is created when mutual expectations are satisfied not just once, or in isolated instances, but consistently, under a variety of circumstances. Breeches of trust can shake a partnership to its foundation and require enormous amounts of time, energy, focus, and often money to repair. Trust is not owed by one partner to another, but rather must be created, nurtured, and sustained over time through repeated personal interactions. Trust is both an input to and an output of successful partnerships.
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Future Orientation: creating a clear vision of the future, committing oneself to that vision, and building the confidence of others in that vision
Whenever you encounter a new situation or meet new people, you do so with a set of attitudes and expectations. If you have a past orientation, you tend to force fit your past experiences into a new situation. If you have a future orientation, you are more likely to see the possibilities inherent in a new situation and approach it openly with good faith and hope. Typically, you enter a new partnership mostly with, sometimes only with, past information about your prospective partner—what you think you know about the prospective partner or what you have heard secondhand about the person. As you build trust with your partner, you become more confident in planning together for the future. Your mutual vision for the partnership serves as the future orientation for your collaborative efforts, the energy that propels the partnership forward. While you and your partner are working together to achieve your partnership goals, the vision you jointly established serves both as a guiding star to ensure that you stay on course and as a benchmark against which to measure progress.
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Comfort with Change: stepping out of one's own comfort zone, looking for new opportunities in marketplace changes, and encouraging others to embrace change
By their very nature, partnerships involve change. In the broadest sense, the perceived need to change—to do something different— is one of the most fundamental reasons for creating a partnership. Just like individuals, organizations periodically need change and renewal. The act of reaching out to form a new partnership in and of itself will disrupt the status quo of an organization and force change, ready or not. Each of us responds to the reality of these kinds of changes in a different way. Some battle to minimize change and its effects on them, while others enthusiastically embrace, and often create, change. Particularly, imposed change affects our thoughts, feelings, and actions, often producing a knee-jerk response. The key to coping with our changing relationships and marketplaces is to remember that although we cannot always control change, we can control how we respond to it. In many instances, partnerships fail because the partners do not have adequate skills for, or put too little time into, building the relationship component of the partnership, an activity that can involve a great degree of personal change. By saying, "I'm fine the way I am; it is my partner who needs to change," a partner walks away from his or her responsibility to embrace personal change.
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Comfort with Interdependence: championing interreliance, relying on others for key results, and fostering interpersonal connections and informal networks
We do not use the word interdependence much in Western cultures. We champion individuals and have built a culture on hard work and self-reliance. But, whereas the twentieth-century marketplace demanded independence and competition, the twentieth-first-century marketplace will require interdependence. With expanding technology and quickly shifting demands for complex goods and services, organizations are finding that they cannot by themselves satisfy all their customers' wants and needs. Just as people adopt predominantly independent or interdependent attitudes in their partnerships, businesses foster a workplace culture in which either independence or interdependence dominates. Interdependence obliges each member of a partnership to give up some control, and giving up control requires a high level of trust in other partners. Interdependence is a tall order, but when organizational leaders value interdependence and act interdependently, they create a work environment that encourages involvement. With increased interaction, people develop a sense that "we're all in this together," and information flows freely, trust is strengthened, and win-win outcomes become the only acceptable results.
| Self-Disclosure and Feedback: promoting the frequent, open, mutual exchange of business information, points of view, and performance feedback
|
| Win-Win Orientation: pursuing objectives, solving problems, and resolving conflicts in a collaborative manner that consistently creates winners all around
|
| Ability to Trust: giving trust unreservedly, honoring one's commitments, and acting in a manner that builds one's personal credibility
|
| Future Orientation: creating a clear vision of the future, committing oneself to that vision, and building the confidence of others in that vision
|
| Comfort with Change: stepping out of one's own comfort zone, looking for new opportunities in marketplace changes, and encouraging others to embrace change
|
| Comfort with Interdependence: championing interreliance, relying on others for key results, and fostering interpersonal connections and informal networks
|
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 94