September 2005
Making Your Alliances Work – Competent Collaboration
Is the synergy worth the energy?
The reason I ask this question is because
developing successful and profitable alliances is
rarely easy. If it were, everyone would be doing
it successfully. Many alliance consultants,
myself included, have determined that about
50% of the alliances created in the United States
fail for one reason or another.
The reasons that you may select to enter into
alliance relationships are varied, and generally
based on need and competencies. The need side
is usually represented in areas where we may
consider ourselves or our organization to be
lacking or weak. The competency side is the
opposite–the strengths that we have to share. An
ideal alliance situation is with a person or
organization exhibiting competency in our
weaker areas and weakness or need in our
personal and/or organization’s areas of
competency. This is where our circles of interest
strongly overlap-where we have the greatest
chance to be of service to one another.
To be successful in building competent
collaborations, at least a sprinkling ofthe
following six personal qualities should be
encompassed within you and your alliance
partners: Curiousity, Vision, Communication,
Leadership, Organization, and Compassion.
Let’s look at these individually.
