In our Alliance & Partnerships Masterclass, it sometimes feels like we are spending a disproportionate amount of time on the preparation phase of an alliance. This matches with the alliance lifecycle as well. Five out of the seven lifecycle steps are about preparation and only two are about managing and optimising your alliances.
Preparation is the foundational work that needs to be done before you can start an alliance. This work is as essential as a foundation under a (high rise) building. To continue on that comparison: like you don’t see the building’s foundation, we will no longer see most of the preparation of an alliance during the actual alliance lifetime. Unless we forget to prepare. Then you will face that negligence during every single moment of the alliance’s lifetime. A lifetime that will generally last longer than the time we spent on preparation.
“Alliances are created between organisations. However, alliances are executed to success by people and their personal connections.”
That’s what I wrote in my previous column. This also means that there need to be key people and functions involved in both the alliance preparation and alliance management phases to create and maintain alliance success.
Who are those key people and what are the key functions needed for alliance success? This is exactly what Anoop Nathwani and I will discuss in this webinar: