Partner for Success: How to Build Partnerships Within An Organisation

This article will cover how to build partnerships within an organisation. Here at ABA, we recognize the critical importance of partnerships in creating organisational success.

Partnerships enable individuals and teams to collaborate on a single purpose, resulting in enhanced productivity, better decision-making, and higher morale.

Partnerships are more vital than ever in today’s fast-paced corporate world. This article will discuss the significance of communicating and being present, the obstacles to developing partnerships across multiple levels and roles, and how organisations may foster a collaborative and cooperative culture.

By the end of this article, you will better understand how to build strategic partnerships inside your business and how these partnerships can lead to long-term success.

Why Is Building Partnerships Important?

Building partnerships is a critical aspect of achieving success in any field because working alone, even with the best ideas and skills, limits your potential for growth and impact. 

When creating change and reaching your goals, partnering with others is essential. By building a team of like-minded individuals who share your vision and values, you will tap into a wider pool of resources, knowledge, and perspectives. With these elements in place, you maximize your chances of success and achieve your goals more effectively. 

Collaborating with others also provides the opportunity to expand one’s perspective and broaden their understanding of the world. When you work with people from different backgrounds and experiences, you learn from their unique perspectives and apply new ideas to your own work. This diversity of thought and perspective is essential for innovation and growth. By building partnerships, you open yourself up to new opportunities, insights, and ways of thinking that can drive success and change in your organisation and beyond.

The Importance of Communication

The ability to communicate effectively is a vital skill for life, and it is no different in the workplace. In fact, without effective communication, it is almost impossible to build and maintain successful partnerships. The cost of not investing in communication can be high, with the missed benefits far exceeding the investment. This is why we often say communication has a greater false economy than any other topic in the world. 

Organisations that ensure they create solid relationships based in understanding, cooperation, and integrity, with both internal and external partners, obtain a massive competitive advantage and long term success as a result. Achieving this quality of relationship can be challenging and complex. The people and organisations that focus on the skills of human interaction and building trust will have a much easier time of it. 

Building successful partnerships requires effective communication, whether within a company or with external partners. Communication that is clear and honest can assist in guaranteeing that all parties are on the same page and working toward the same goal. This is especially critical when forming strategic alliances, which frequently include long-term commitments and common aims. Let’s now look at the most important pillars of effective communication. 

The Value of Being Present

Being present means being fully immersed in the current moment and giving complete attention to the person or task at hand. To be present, focus on your breathing and center yourself. This means letting go of distractions or outside thoughts and being completely focused on what’s happening. 

By being present, you can fully engage with others and effectively receive and respond to their communication. This will more often than not lead to deeper connections and more productive partnerships in both personal and professional settings.

Being present in the moment is a key aspect of effective communication, but it can be challenging to maintain focus when our minds wander off into other thoughts. The solution is simple: stand up straight, take a deep breath into your belly, and bring your attention back to the present moment. 

This simple act of breathing into your center helps to clear your mind and refocus your attention on the person in front of you. By doing this, you give your full attention to the conversation, which is essential for building strong relationships and effective communication. In short, taking a moment to breathe and return to the present is a quick and effective way to improve your communication skills and build better partnerships.

Building Trust and Communication

Trust is an essential component of any partnership as it allows both parties to work together confidently and openly. When building trust, it is crucial to take a measured approach, giving just enough trust initially, and then assessing if the other person deserves to earn more.

Effective communication is also essential in building trust, as it allows both parties to clearly understand each other’s intentions and objectives, thereby minimizing misunderstandings and potential conflicts. With effective communication and a solid foundation of trust, partners can work together towards a common goal, resulting in a successful and productive partnership.

Building Partnerships Across Levels and Divisions

Building collaborations across organisational levels and divisions can be tricky since different departments and teams may have different goals and priorities. On the other hand, these collaborations can be incredibly valuable because they bring a variety of viewpoints and ideas to the table.

Finding common ground

If we’re going to build a partnership across different levels and functions, we want to make sure provokability will happen. The concept of provokability can often be misunderstood. However, it simply means that people are willing to have difficult conversations, work through their differences, and stand up for what they feel is the best for the business (we will expand on this topic later in the article).

Clear communication channels

Communication within an organisation will happen in many different forms. Whether you’re communicating face-to-face, through slack, email, or even video conferences, the same principle applies: 

Do you have an intention to be understood the way you want to?

It’s crucial that you are communicating in a clear way and checking in with the other person to make sure there is understanding. By ensuring you’re communicating clearly across all different communication channels, partnerships can run smoothly and achieve their intended goals.

How to Build Partnerships With Stakeholders

Building partnerships with stakeholders is crucial to achieving success for an organisation. Stakeholders can include customers, suppliers, investors, and other external parties that can impact or be impacted by the organisation’s actions. Building partnerships here can lead to increased revenue, improved reputation, and a greater understanding of the market.

The most important factor is involving stakeholders in the decision-making process. This can be achieved by creating opportunities for them to provide input and feedback. This approach not only helps to build trust and understanding but also allows the organisation to benefit from the diverse perspectives and ideas of stakeholders.

Another strategy is to seek opportunities to collaborate with stakeholders proactively. organisations want to actively seek out new partnerships and opportunities to work with stakeholders, whether it’s through networking events, industry conferences, or other gatherings. By proactively seeking new partnerships, organisations expand their reach and build stronger relationships with stakeholders.

How to Build Partnerships Within an Organisation (Common Challenges)

Building successful partnerships within an organisation can be challenging and require a combination of effective communication, trust, and understanding. These are the 3 biggest roadblocks to forming successful partnerships. Let’s look at each one in more detail and possible solutions.

Lack of communication

One of the common challenges of building partnerships is a lack of clear communication. This leads to misunderstandings, misaligned goals, and a lack of trust between partners. To address this challenge, organisations can establish clear and consistent communication channels, and make sure all parties involved are aware of the goals, expectations and progress of the partnership.

Lack of understanding and agreement to action

Another common challenge is a lack of understanding and agreement to action between partners. This leads to conflicts, and ultimately, the failure of the partnership. To address this challenge, organisations can take the time to understand the goals, priorities and perspectives of their partners. 

By finding common ground and ensuring a level of provokability, organisations ensure that the partnership is aligned and that both parties work towards a shared brightness of future.

Lack of trust & failure to meet agreements

Finally, building trust is crucial for the success of a partnership. Without trust, affinity will drop and partners may be less willing to share information, collaborate or take risks. Building trust takes time and requires consistent and responsive communication. To build trust, organisations should be transparent in their communication, follow through on commitments, and be responsive to the needs of their partners.

Developing a Partnership Strategy

Once these challenges are addressed and you clearly understand the partnership’s benefits, it is important to develop a strategy for building and maintaining the partnership. This will ideally include a plan for how the partnership will be structured, how communication and decision-making will be handled, and how success will be measured.

Some key elements of a successful partnership strategy include:

• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each partner
• Regular communication and meetings to keep everyone informed and on track
• A shared decision-making process that is fair and transparent
• Clear goals and metrics for measuring success
• A plan for resolving conflicts or issues that may arise

How to Build Partnerships Within an Organisation – Managing and Maintaining

Once the partnership is established, it is important to manage it to ensure that it continues to deliver value. This is done, again, by maintaining a level of provokability within the partnership.

It’s also important to mention provokability doesn’t involve anger. To gain a deeper understanding of this concept, let’s imagine a real-life scenario where provokability would be essential to the success of a partnership: 

Successful Partnerships Examples (Provokabillity In Action)

Let’s imagine there is a certain organisation that is facing productivity issues. A meeting is set with the intention of increasing productivity across all levels of the organisation. 

During the meeting, one of the agreed solutions (agreed by everyone) to reduce wasted time is eliminating smoke breaks on work grounds. Employees who go off site, either for lunch or meetings, can smoke offsite, and there will be no more smoking on work grounds. To be clear, this is not a directive from above, this is something that every member of the team decides is a good idea.

Everyone agrees to the implementation of this solution, as well as a host of others, and the meeting is adjourned. Two weeks later,while the janitor is taking out the trash, he finds the CEO smoking a cigarette next to the bin. 

How is provokability established here?

Well, to ensure the partnership’s success, the janitor would ask the CEO a question with affinity, and in a calm and friendly way. The questions would be something like “my understanding was that 2 weeks ago we all made an agreement with ourselves and each other that there would be no more smoking on work grounds… how did you make it ok to break the agreement you made with yourself and wiith the rest of us?” this would be done with a neutral tone, and with an intention to understand, and when done well, this is a great example of provokabiltiy. In order for real cooperation to be a part of the culture of an organisation, provokability doesn’t travel only from the top down. It also travels from the bottom up, side to side, and across divisions of an organisation.  

Conclusion

In summary, building partnerships within a company is critical for success. Effective communication, being present with people, and forming alliances across multiple levels and divisions are all essential to creating effective partnerships.

We’ve spoken about the importance of communication, the various sorts of communication, the necessity of being present with people, and the way to be present with others. We also discussed the obstacles of forming partnerships at different functions for doing so. By using these ideas in your workplace, you will be able to create better collaborations and achieve long-term success.

Remember that good communication, being present, creating trust, and understanding the viewpoints of others are all necessary for successful partnership building. We hope this article has provided you with helpful information that you may utilize in your own workplace.