Partnering Tip: Reading the Landscape
When we are faced with very complex issues or ‘wicked problems’, partnering may be seen as the obvious path to a solution. This is never more evident than right now where it is being used as a key response mechanism to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are seeing a massive increase in collaboration and partnering taking place at all levels of business, government, community and education. This is in response to many critical needs, such as producing PPE and ventilators, providing support services to people impacted, as well as developing potential new vaccines.
Organisations are embarking on new partnerships, often with partners they have never worked with before and know very little about.
At this time it is even more critical to be aware of the external landscape in which the new partnering will operate. Whenever we enter into any partnering arrangement, whether it be internal or external we need to try and read the landscape and assess what is happening around us in the external environment now and then what is likely some time in the future. We need to look closely at what impact this may have on the potential timing for partnering.
This pandemic crisis has brought this need into sharp focus. While partnering has been critical in responding to this crisis, it can also be a challenging time to try to start a partnering process. There is a great deal of uncertainty at present and there will be many changes on the other side of this pandemic which could impact on opportunities for partnering, both positive and negative, so anticipating what the future holds is extremely difficult at this time.
Stepping back and doing some reflection and due diligence now will give you the best chance of developing a sustainable partnership that actual delivers - whether it just be short term arrangement or it becomes a longer term venture.
Some key questions relevant to this could include:
Is there a very clear purpose for partnering?
Are the potential partners likely to be in operation after the crisis?
Are the partners likely to have the time to commit or are they in survival mode?
How will the proposed partnering contribute to the recovery post pandemic?
How could we go about partnering given the current constraints on social distancing?
Learning to read the landscape to see if it’s the right time to partner is a crucial partnering skill and one that will potentially save you many hours in unproductive time.