Development (3 of 4) - Personal AND Relationship

This article is focused on strategic relationship managers: individuals responsible for the establishment, development and management of long-term value-creating relationships (e.g., strategic alliances and partnerships).

This is the third in a series of four articles on the development of business relationships, especially strategic alliances and partnerships.

As with many breakthrough ideas, answers to "either/or" questions are often best addressed from a "both/and" perspective.  Should we focus on the development of ourselves or our business relationship? How about focusing on both? Maybe a "both/and" answer is actually the best answer for both. 

Develop both yourself and your business relationship,
simultaneously.

As will see in the next module a "both/and" approach actually brings us great clarity and focus.

The first article in this series concluded with the following ...

"A great way to meld personal success with alliance success is to use the three areas of personal development as a framework for developing our alliance (discussed in the next article Development (2 of 4) – Relationship). For each area of alliance development (e.g., strategy and business planning) we ask ourselves and management the following questions:

• What attitude & mindset do I need to adopt and embrace? (the most important of these three questions)
• What skills do I need to develop? (important)
• What knowledge do I need to acquire? (in general, the least important question)"

We should ask these questions for all three areas of alliance development: (1) Strategy & Business Plan, (2) Relationship & People, and (3) Finance & Legal. We ask ourselves and we ask individuals involved in the business relationship. We ask management, on both sides of the business relationship.

We use the following framework, focused on the three areas of personal development (introduced in the first article and summarized above), as a tool for conducting these conversations. We listen deeply and then distill what we hear to its simplest essence.

Figure 1 - relationship development, framed by personal success.
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We populate the framework in Figure 1 with prioritized success-causing attributes, unique to us and unique to our business relationship. We consider the unique objectives of the business, the maturity and needs of our alliance, and our personal abilities and development objectives. Figure 2 is such a populated framework; its content is based on the author’s experience (it is just an example). (See Note, below.)

Each cell describes focused areas of development for our selves and for our relationship. With nine cells this table can easily become too complex. To aid in simplification we suggest allowing a maximum of 5 things listed in the top-priority center cell (the center of the table). The second-tier cells (in the attitude & mindset row, and the relationship & people column) tend to need fewer things listed (3-5). The outermost cells (traditional business skills and knowledge) tend to have the fewest things list (around 3). With this framework and this approach, things will start simplifying for us (further simplification is discussed in the follow-on module - Development (4 of 4) - SPF: Simplify, Prioritize and Focus).

Figure 2 - we must focus on (a) the most important attribute of self (attitude & mindset), (b) the most important factor in business relationships (relationship), and most importantly (c) the intersection (i.e., the "both/and") of changing attitude & mindset in order to deepen and improve relationship.
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We place our greatest emphasis on relationship and people. We focus on the most important, most challenging, and most rewarding question of all. We focus our attention on the heart of ourselves and the heart of our business relationship:

What attitude & mindset do we need to embody
in order to deepen and improve relationship?

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We are developing training focused on bringing practical spirituality into the world of business, specifically into business relationships. In time, this training will be available on-line. Let me know if you are interested.

Also, check out some of the whitepapers written over the past couple of decades on being an alliance manager, confrontation, simplicity, self-obsolescence and being transformational.

I can help you transform your business relationships.

If you find the ideas I share with you to be of value, consider remuneration.

Love,

Joe Kittel
simple ideas at work(TM)
www.spibr.org 
[email protected]

The other modules in this series:

• Development (1 of 4) – Personal
• Development (2 of 4) – Relationship
• Development (4 of 4) – Simplify, Prioritize, Focus

Note: Figures 1 and 2 summarize the 3x3 Development Methodology(TM) a process for an alliance manager to clearly define his/her role with their direct manager and align with the rest of the organization. The 3x3 table of Figure 2 can be defined for an enterprise, customized for specific layers in their business ecosystem and then fine-tuned for the individual alliance managers. This is a powerful simplifying and alignment process. This methodology is discussed more thoroughly in Chapter 4 of the book Spiritual Principles in Strategic Alliances: be the metaphor for metamorphosis; transform status quo mediocrity into greatness by Joe Kittel; available on Amazon and at www.spibr.org, in hardcopy and as an e-book.