Wisdom Without Waiting: The Age of Partnerships
© John L. Mariotti 2001
The simple fact is that today's supercharged, turbulent, technology rich, global business environment is so complex that nobody can be good enough at everything. Nor should they try. No company and no individual can be good at more than a core set of competencies, and these are constantly evolving. The conclusion that follows from this premise is that everyone-individually and organizationally needs partners to complement what it is they have decided to be good at.
If you will accept for the moment that everyone needs partners, and that nearly everyone has partners already, then the ability to make partnerships work becomes one of the critical core competencies of the 21st century. Many of the existing partnerships are flawed; some are broken; others are just bad clich=E9s. But the ones that are really working are incredibly powerful.
The power of these successful partnerships is an even stronger reason that making partnerships work is imperative for success is the future. If these points are not sufficient to convince you of that fact, I want to add one more. In the current global business competition, whoever chooses and keeps the best partners will win. The best suppliers; the best customers; the best employees; the best special advisors and consultants; the best joint-venture partners, all working in concert will make the best competitive enterprise. The weak may band together, but even a coalition of second rate performers can't beat a collaborative alliance of the best.
The evidence is all around us. The behemoths of the past, with their vertically integrated businesses are disintegrating-and I chose that word purposely. Consider General Motors and Ford. Both have divested their captive parts divisions, Delphi and Visteon. Consider A T & T and Lucent, the formerly might "Ma Bell". Each of them is spinning off parts faster than a disintegrating turbine engine. Still others, Kodak and Xerox are struggling to find a corporate core around which to re-configure themselves.
These are the companies that brutalized suppliers, treated customers with haughty disdain, and developed in their own unions, their worst adversaries. Chrysler, which found and used the power of partnerships in the 1990s, has been dismantled from the top down, and is being recast in the shadow of its owner, Daimler-Benz. The first initiative of Daimler Chrysler when in trouble was to strong-arm suppliers for money, and cut anyone who spoke out in honest dissent.
Suppliers like Toyota may be tough, but they are tightly linked to a network of partners. Cisco, in spite of its current difficulties has a similar network of partners. Dell reinvented the supply chain and how computers are built, based on a network of partners surrounding its plants.
But partnerships that work are not all touchie-feelie, softhearted deals. There is a valuable and necessary tension between soft and hard sides. The soft side has to do with the human issues of trust and the relationship part of the partnership. The hard side has to do with the fact that partnerships must produce something useful-some kind of value added. This requires clear understandings, specific stated expectations, measurable goals detailed commitments, vigilant follow-up, and tough minded purpose-nothing less.
There is no room in a partnership for so-called "nice folks", who don't get done what they said they would do. This goes for all partnerships whether they are with customers, suppliers, joint venture partners, or employees. Partnerships are all about promises and commitments-to be kept-by both partners.
As the last death knell sounds for employee loyalty, the only new social contract that makes any sense to people in today's volatile employment world is that of a partnership-in some form. Obviously, making partnerships work is both a critical skill and a powerful strategy. In the future, it will only grow in importance. Remember, no one can be good enough at everything, and whoever chooses and keeps the best partners will win. That's why this is the age of partnerships.
