The Company From The Begining

I think with the ever changing economy that we need to take a step back reevaluate who your business competition is and take a new look at the market place and combine our resources and target the customers together bringing them what they desire. A quality product, customer service, reasonable prices. By creating partnerships this is a goal that can be met.

What do we Really Mean by ‘Partnership’?

Perhaps you’ve heard the story: There was a man who wanted to see both hell and heaven. He goes first to a land where all the people have delicious food to eat. But they have spoons longer than their arms, so they go hungry and suffer horribly. Then he goes to another place where everyone has the same wonderful food and the same long spoons. But here, they use the spoons to feed each other! This is the nature of hell and heaven, and the hair’s breadth that divides them.

We use this parable, which exists in many cultures, to demonstrate the difference between what people normally call ‘partnership’ and the partnership which could possibly exist in a team or an organization of people working together. How would it be if you and everyone else in your team came to work committed to ensuring each other’s success?

What Kinds of ‘Normal‘ Organizational Behavior Would You No Longer See?

- You would never fingerpoint (or be fingerpointed at!) over failure to deliver a promise

- You could not be at ease with delivering results and getting recognition, when other members of your team had struggled to achieve their targets

- You would never suffer from anxiety and overload, while other team members were happy, thriving and successful in their work

In a team where the ‘long spoons’ model of partnership exists:

- The whole team takes accountability for everyone’s results – if one team member is struggling to produce results, the whole team feels it has failed

- The leader is a full member of the team, not set apart from other team members in any way, though he has a specific role to fulfill. And it is their job to have him succeed, just as it is his to have them succeed

- The satisfaction, motivation and well being of other members of the team is just as much a part of your job as is achieving your targets

Why Should You, as a Leader, Create Partnerships?

You could argue that, in the presence of a powerful leader, partnership is unnecessary – you will get the job done with or without others’ involvement. But in today’s organizations, this is not sufficient. You might achieve the result, but at what cost? If you don’t involve others, you leave them disempowered and unmotivated. You don’t train them in how to produce results. Your organization is the poorer, and if you leave, your knowledge and skill leaves too.

Then too, many organizations these days are moving to a matrix structure, where it is increasingly difficult for any one person to get the job done without involving others. In fact it’s often positively destructive to focus single-mindedly on your own targets when so many others’ success depends on your cooperation and involvement.

Working in partnership maximizes the chances of success for you, and for everyone else in the organization. Leading the charge on a white charger is a very lonely position to be in, especially when you look round, and there’s nobody behind you!

- Change your Mindset

The foundation of the kind of partnership we are talking about here is Trust. If you don’t trust someone, you won’t want to contribute to them, and you won’t want them to contribute to you.

The way most of us regard trust is that the other person needs to earn it. And if they do something that reduces our trust in them, they should do something to put it right. The problem with this is that the change in perception has happened in your mind. Very often ‘they’ don’t even know there’s a problem!

If as a leader you are committed to creating partnership around you, you need to make a fundamental shift in your own mindset around trust, and everyone around you is accountable for generating and maintaining it. In our model, you are accountable! Not for any moral or ethical reason, though some belief systems and religions would argue this, but because being accountable for generating trust and partnership with those we need to work (or live) with, works!

In fact, if we are talking about your work team colleagues, your boss, your customers, your suppliers, you are paid to be accountable for generating this level of partnership, and not to do so is a breach of integrity.

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