Organizational Alliances, Part 2:
What to Do When Your Partnership Is on the Rocks
Resource
The Fieldstone Nonprofit Guide to Forming
Alliances
Contents
How to make the thing work
Questions guide discussion
From Vince Hyman, Publishing Director, Fieldstone Alliance:
In the last issue of Tools You Can Use, I covered some basic information about alliances as presented in our most recent book: Forming Alliances: Working Together to Achieve Mutual Goals by Linda Hoskins and Emil Angelica.
We looked at alliances as part of a continuum of partnerships, ranging from the most simple (cooperation and coordination), to complex collaborations, to the ultimate partnership—a complete merger. We advised that organizations were wise to look for the path of least resistance when forming an alliance—in other words, go for the simplest possible approach. And we provided a set of questions to help your organization consider the pros and cons of forming an alliance.
This issue, I want to focus on one of the great discussions in this book—how to understand and manage the relationship dynamics within an alliance. I've adapted it from pages 60-67 of the book.
How to make the thing work
If you came of age in the 60s and
early 70s, you may recall advocates of something called "group marriage," involving,
well, a group. I'm kind of a pragmatic Midwestern boy, and I never got what the advantage was
supposed to be to that set up, given that a more traditional relationship already seems to require
110% from both partners, assisted by a small army of therapists, financial advisors, lawyers,
personal trainers, podiatrists, plumbers, electricians, interior designers, cable providers, and
home computer networking experts. Why complicate matters by adding a half dozen other partners?
Yet, if you're involved in an alliance among nonprofits, you've entered into the organizational equivalent of a group marriage. Best to have some sense of how to manage the thing.
In their book, Hoskins and Angelica introduce a framework for looking at the relationship dynamics of an alliance, first introduced to them by Chris Kloth, of ChangeWorks of the Heartland. Kloth calls the framework the Working Together Benchmarks, and he uses it with clients who want to improve the effectiveness of their partnerships.
The framework has six components:
- Shared purpose
- Shared power
- Shared view of interdependence
- Mutual respect and trust
- Shared control
- Shared indicators of progress
The six components can be displayed in an interlinked triangle:
Each of these components is critical to the success of an alliance. When partners in an alliance develop concerns about the alliance or its results, they can turn to a set of questions to help them discuss the work relationships among partners.
Questions guide discussion
The following explanations and questions relate to each of the six
components. Members of an alliance can use the questions to untangle work problems.
1. Shared purpose
Alliances must be based on shared goals to create outcomes that benefit all members. As time passes, goals may be completed or may change. To keep the momentum of the alliance going or to ensure that its purpose is still relevant, partners can review their shared purpose. Partners can ask:
- Do we (does each organization) have the same goals for the alliance?
The conversation that follows should result in a detailed description of the alliance's intended outcomes in concrete terms, including measurable goals. Partners often come together around a shared general purpose without reaching real agreement about the tangible goals they expect to achieve.
2. Shared power
The partners got into this relationship to accomplish some goals that were unobtainable working alone. Thus, the partners should be there because each has something that contributes to the net outcome—and without which the outcome would either falter or fail. Over time, differences in the nature of the contributions change, and this can contribute to differences in the way organizations perceive the power they have in the alliance. The results—a sense that power is out of whack—can undermine working relationships. Partners can ask:
- What knowledge, skills, relationships, and staff (or other resources) are necessary to accomplish the shared purpose?
The resulting discussion can help clarify how power is shared among alliance partners. If the outcomes of the project are not emerging as expected, the discussion can help partners review who has agreed to be responsible and who has the power to accomplish tasks that will deliver the outcomes.
3. Shared view of interdependence
Shared interdependence is the flip side of shared power: partners in a successful alliance recognize that they depend on each other to get their goals accomplished. But as work progresses, the nature of the interdependence can get obscured over time. Partners should ask:
- Do we really believe that we are interdependent?
- Why do we need each other to accomplish the purpose to which we aspire?
The discussion can surface areas where the partners are interdependent, as well as those where the partners can act independently of each other. If one or more partners discovers that they can have the same impact without the alliance, or that some alliance partners won't follow through on the commitments necessary to achieve the shared purpose, its time to evaluate whether the alliance should continue.
4. Mutual respect and trust
Alliances often start as a great idea among a few people who know each other well. But when the actual work gets started, many more people are involved, and they often don't know each other. So an alliance needs to tend to it's pools of mutual respect and trust, both by being sure that partners are delivering on their promises, and by working to build good personal relationships among the people who do the work. To better understand if mutual respect and trust are strong in the alliance, partners can ask:
- Do we believe we can accomplish our goals?
- Did each of us do what we said we would do?
The resulting discussion often leads partners to talk about what has been accomplished, and what needs to be accomplished.
5. Shared control
Shared control links shared power with mutual respect and trust. Control, in this context, consists of the systems alliance partners set up to ensure that shared resources are used effectively and efficiently. Examples of such systems include work plans, contracts, policies, and procedures. These systems need to be transparent, so that all the partners can have input, see what's going on, and make adjustments as needed. To determine whether control is being shared, partners can ask:
-
Are we sharing the resources needed for the alliance in a complete and timely way?
If an alliance discovers that certain parts of the system are not being delivered on (say, some members are not following through on their part of the work plan) the discussion can help uncover where and why the system is failing.
6. Shared indicators of progress
The work of most alliances occurs over months or years. It's easy to get bogged down, and partners lose momentum when they don't feel they are successfully accomplishing goals. So, the alliance needs to be clear about what progress toward goals looks like. Partners should ask:
- In areas where we are progressing toward our shared purpose, what can we do to improve our results?
- Where we aren't progressing toward our shared purpose, what is making it hard to move forward?
Remember, the discussion has progressed through a series of questions. At this point, the partners should have a better understanding of how their alliance operates and have ideas to improve the alliance. This part of the discussion works well when partners focus on the difference the alliance is making in its community, rather than focusing on judging each member's performance. The shared indicators (especially specific numbers or measurements that indicate progress) can give an alliance new energy. The discussion can also help the purpose of the alliance evolve alongside the needs of the communities it serves.
Sincerely,
Vince Hyman
Publishing Director
Fieldstone Alliance
September 13, 2005
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