Our Blog – Strategic Alliances
Alliance Stakeholder Alignment
Posted Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 07:00 AM by Norma Watenpaugh
Do you have champions in your alliance? or do you have snipers and hostages?
When I teach alliance skills mastery workshops, I often ask how much time managers spend on internal alignment. That is winning the hearts and minds of the internal alliance stakeholders to gain their buy-in and cooperation. I hear answers from 30% to sometimes a frustrated 100%. Most commonly, I hear on the order of 70% of an alliance managers day is spent in gaining and maintaining alignment within the company to the goals and objectives of an alliance and solciting support from the stakeholders to execute on alliance projects.
That is a lot of time! Time that could be spent on more productive activities that create value; activities that create innovative products or generate revenue!
When an organization is not internally aligned, there is friction in the operations. Friction is costly! Just ask any mechanical engineer. It wears people down, causes operations to grind to a halt. Then it takes an inordinate amount of energy to start the process up again. Even in a well managed alliance, energy has to be continually injected to keep operations going forward to overcome friction.
There's got to be a better way! No promising miracles, but here is a tool that will help you understand where those points of friction are and to help you oil the machine.
By positionng alliance stakeholders on this matrix, you will begin to see the work cut out for you. On the X axis is commitment. Think of this in terms of how these stakeholders perceive the value of the alliance. Do they believe it is a positive strategy for the company?
On the Y axis is accountability. What do these people have at stake in the success of the partnership? Do they have a bonus on the line, a quarterly objective, personal reputation, a positive review from their manager?
You will be able to anticipate the behaviors and attiftudes of the stakeholders by where they fall in the matrix. These quadrants are colorfully named, but the names imply some of the behaviors you should expect. Understanding the motivations of stakeholders by commitment and accountability will enable you to develop strategies and tactics to address behavior and attitudes.
Champions are highly committed and highly accountable. What behaviors would you expect from your champions? You would expect them to evangelize the value of the partnership to others and to go the extra mile to meet their commitments. If you are the alliance manager, you should be in this quadrant! and so should your executive sponsor.
Cheerleaders are true believers, but are not accountable for the success of the alliance. They may have other priorities so they may not be as dependable as those who are accountable. But they are people you want on your team and people you might recruit nto the Champion quadrant by giving them a stake in successful outcomes.
Hostages aren't committed to the partnership. They would rather be working on something else, but since they are accountable in some way, they feel stuck. They will do the bare minimum but no more.
Snipers. Who doesn't have a few of these. Snipers may actually have an incentive see an alliance fail. Their goals and accountabilities might be in direct conflict. Address these folks early or they will spread discontent.
I have been invited to join the Asian Collaborative Business Relationship Community for a free webinar to discuss alliance stakeholder alignment. We will be discussing how to use this tool to help grease the machine as you launch an alliance and how to maintain alignment through on going operations. If you are interested in learning more please join us on June 21. Register here.
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The Nature of Trust
Posted Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 02:28 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
I did a study three years ago of partner health across 14 strategic alliances and about ~400 respondents and found something very interesting about the nature of trust in alliances. We did a correlation of heath attributes against overall partner health. We found that when 'trust' was present it...
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Tags: Alliance Management Best Practices, Alliance Strategy
Social Media and Partnering
Posted Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 11:17 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
Social media hype is everywhere. We are deluged with it on-line. We see it on TV. Our kids are absorbed by Facebook. The State department even requests that Twitter delays maintenance to ensure continuity in the information flow from civil unrest in Iran. Even as we are coming to grips with Social...
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Tags: social media, partnering
The Power of Green Alliances
Posted Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 02:32 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
Attended an ASAP Green breakfast this morning and it was certainly eye opening even if the coffee arrived late.
Hal LaFlash, Dir Emerging Clean Technology Policyfrom PG&E -that's Pacific Gas and Electric for the non-Californians - spoke on the many alliances that PG&E has been...
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Tags: power, green, alliances
The ROI of Loyalty (Part II)
Posted Monday, May 11, 2009 at 11:17 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
Part I discussed how demographic segmentation allowedtargeting programs, benefits, and attention to engender greater loyalty and business through their developers. Part II addresseshow segmentation by 'Loyalty' itself helps to identify andto address specific concerns of developers. While...
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Tags: roi, loyalty
The ROI of Loyalty (Part I)
Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 11:17 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
I was approached by a client some weeks ago to present at conference some work we did on Developer Loyalty. Now there are a lot satisfaction type surveys out there, but my client presented a very specific challenge. She was new in the role as the Director of the Developer Community and...
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Tags: roi, loyalty
Strategic Alliance Bookshelf
Posted Monday, January 5, 2009 at 03:09 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
Have you read a book in the past year that made an impact on you and how you manage alliances and partnerships? Could even be one you've written!! Here are some that I read this past year which I found had relevance to the field of alliance management. NOT listed in any order other than how they...
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Tags: alliances, reading, list
Alliances in the News
Posted Sunday, December 7, 2008 at 08:32 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
Plans for Strategic Alliances on the Rise
Nearly one-third of consumer products companies plan to forge new strategic alliances in the upcoming 12 months (30 percent), up 8 points from the second quarter of 2008 according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers
NEW YORK, Dec 4, 2008» View Full Post and Leave Feedback
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Strategic Alliances - More now than ever
Posted Monday, October 13, 2008 at 11:17 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
Strategic alliances are often viewed as a strategy for growth and perhaps not always a strategy for economically challenging times. But many of the reasons that make strategic alliances a good idea in good times make them an even better strategy for uncertain times. What are these reasons to partner...
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Tags: strategic alliances, importance
Driving Growth through Win-Win Alliances
Posted Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 11:17 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
What do you think of, when you think win-win? Most business people will interpret that as "I win and my partner wins". Unfortunately quite a number will behave differently: "win-win means I win twice!" This, as you can imagine, does not produce sustainable partnerships. Smart business people will...
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Tags: partnering, growth
Coopetition - Sleeping with the Enemy
Posted Friday, April 25, 2008 at 11:17 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
The April meeting of the Silicon Valley/Norcal Chapter of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals featured a panel discussion on Coopetition. It turns out to be as hard to pronounce as it is to do. The panel often...
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Tags: alliances, cooperation, competition
Collaborative Innovation: Leveraging Partnerships
Posted Friday, March 28, 2008 at 11:17 PM by Norma Watenpaugh
"Collaborative Innovation: Leveraging Strategic Partnerships for the Global Playing Field" Sunday, March 30, 2008BlogTalkRadio: www.BlogTalkRadio.com/CoachforInnovation... » View Full Post and Leave Feedback Tags: partnering, innovation Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 11:17 PM by Norma Watenpaugh A successful alliance program begins at the top with the support of the CEO. Like many other things, the CEO influences company culture, models the behavior, and sets the priorities in collaborative relationships. CEO support and that of the CXO staff fosters the environment where alliances can... » View Full Post and Leave Feedback Tags: partnering, success, alliances, secretsStrategic Alliance Secret #4 Success Begins at the Top
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