Twelve Steps to Collaborative Heaven

In our series of posts this year, we have explained the ‘must dos’ to make your business-to-business relationships move up a gear or three and achieve outstanding results. Just to refresh your memory here is the set:

 ·        Organisational Arrangements - So you think you know who you are working with

·         The Business Case - What do you need to make it work?

·         The Relationship Asset Register - ‘Nuts and bolts’ and the soft stuff!

·         Risk Assessment - Risks, what do you mean risks?

·         The Commercial Agreement - The root of all evil or the best thing since sliced bread?

·         Managing Performance - keeping to the straight and narrow

·         Continuous Improvement and Innovation - When you don’t know that you don’t know!

·         Knowledge Management - Sharing Trade Secrets?

·         Communications - Communicate or ex-communicate?

·         Personnel and Team Development - Ignore people at your peril

·         Exit Arrangements - The elephant in the room

·         Management - The buck stops here

 This is a set of rules, a Target Operating Model, for your partnerships that everyone involved can rally around, contribute to and use as an ongoing management system. This will be useful in all phases of the relationship, when deciding to partner, working together and finally closing down gracefully. It makes life easy for both staff and managers because it joins the dots and guarantees that none are missed. It makes sense, don’t you agree?

 Look out for our next series of posts both here and in LinkedInwhere we debunk the many myths surrounding collaborative working that get in the way of successfully managing your key business relationships.

 For complete practical guide see our book Implementing and Managing Collaborative Relationships.