Making Your Alliances Work

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 of the following six personal qualities should be encompassed within you and your alliance

partners: Curiosity, Vision, Communication, Leadership, Organization, and Compassion.

Let’s look at these individually.