People make partnering work

The topic of ‘partnership’ has been hotly debated over the past couple of years and it is therefore with some trepidation that I add my voice. But I remain of the belief that partnering is not only both desirable and achievable, but also essential if business is to make more effective use of service providers and vice versa.

However, to make this happen, we need to reconsider how the best partnership deals have been structured. It may even be helpful to find a new name for partnership, one untainted by the experiences of the past few years.

Facilities management is now one of the single most progressive and innovative professions, but it does not share its experiences often enough, particularly when deals go sour. Nobody wants to talk about the bad things; we seem to read only about the successes.

One of the routes for gaining a greater understanding of the successes or failures could be through the professional bodies; BIFM, IFMA, FMA. As individual members of these bodies, we could all benefit from workshops – not presentations – where clients and providers share experiences and try to evolve alternative practices. We need a kind of forum, where learning from mistakes can take place without criticism. IFMA UK is, for example, looking at workshops on the effect that successful partnering will have in the UK and Europe, and how to build on best practice.

Clearly there is no single ‘right’ answer to working in a partnership. Many organisations have experienced that sinking feeling after the first flush of success, and there continue to be mixed reviews. Clients finding that value for money and innovation have failed to materialised. Providers feeling they are not getting the the appreciation they deserve for the services they have delivered.

Have we all been chasing the Holy Grail when it is clearly not achievable? Or has the approach we have been taking not been thought through enough?

We have forgotten the basis on which most traditional partnerships have been successfully formed. In the past, partnerships were born out of people coming together with a shared vision of what they could achieve, and a clear commitment to working together to reach that goal.

Comparisons have been made between partnerships and marriage. People usually enter marriage with a sound belief that they can make the relationship work. This demands openness, trust, common aspirations, shared ideals and a willingness to resolve differences should they arise.

It is usually a combination of things that puts partnerships, and for that matter marriages, under stress. Things like alternative arrangements that look better than the original deal, and material pressures that lead to arguments about the management of resources.

Meanwhile time pressures where the parties have little time to resolve issues is also a factor while poor communication, where neither party talks in clear and unambiguous terms about what it is that can make or break the arrangement they made, can also put the partnership under stress.

But the common thread that defines success or failure is people. People make or break deals. When the players change and are no longer closely connected throughout the period of the contract, a lack of commitment to the success of the original deal begins to appear.

The key component is not the contract or the substance of the deal, but keeping together the people who made it happen

Providers of services are often selected because of their size and experience. While the advertisements tell us to the contrary, size does not always matter. Perhaps we might explore as a new set of differentiators, including:

• the development of alliances and sharing of resources
• the contribution that can be made towards innovation and alternative business strategies
• blending management structures that can be established to support the deal
• the attitude and ideas of the team members
• factoring-in the right culture
• establishing empathy so that all the parties are facing in the same direction
• where failure is treated as a learning process leading to more well-rounded success
• ensuring that the people who started the journey will stay throughout the deal until the delivery

This must be complimented with far greater opportunities for people to share knowledge and develop even better solutions.