The Way to Poor Relationships is Paved with Good Intentions
Companies try a variety of collaborative management strategies that invariably disappoint.
Vendor Management: A global oil and gas company re-badged its Commercial function to VM to manage a rationalised supply chain of strategic partners. However, traditional T&Cs contract management continued and two years later the Boards wondered why collaborative benefits were not forthcoming.
Best Practice: A multi-national confectionery manufacturer could not understand why its usual management approach did not work with small partners. Many organisations fixate on ‘best practice’ usually based on local experience. This company failed to realise that repeating what had worked before couldn’t be applied generally.
Standards: In recent years a major national infrastructure company aimed to achieve more efficient collaborative working through accreditation. Unfortunately, it was disappointed because the benefits did not materialise. Subsequently it did not renew. The old adage “you cannot inspect in quality” applied.
Contractual Frameworks: In a major PPP consortium a government department endeavoured to create a contractual environment to promote collaborative working but without consulting people on the ground. It resulted in a hugely complex governance structure which strait-jacketed the way the organisations worked, ignored basic operational contingencies, created an adversarial atmosphere and stopped collaboration in its tracks.
Strategic Investment: A number of international IT companies’ sales organisations appointed ‘clerks’ as Relationship Managers. A blue-chip aerospace company in the UK deleted its relationship management function during the annual cost review. Failure to consider the strategic value of working closely with partners resulted in a lack of investment in the management required to achieve it.
Misconceptions about how to achieve collaborative working is common and efforts are mostly wasted. It is not generally realised that a specific management system (Target Operating Model) is needed. Our book Implementing and Managing Collaborative Relationships describes a comprehensive, flexible, end-to-end management process that can be easily incorporated into existing management structures.