Collaboration Woes - A Downward Spiral

 Seventy five percent of alliances fail to live up to expectations because they enter a continuous value destruction cycle. The reasons are many and varied but overall, the lack of clear focus on what the value proposition is and how it is to be achieved leads to unreality in the way that the relationship develops. Further, non-performance of delivery to and by each side leads to lack of trust and ultimately to confrontation as the situation worsens.

 It looks like this:

 “Adversarial conditions predominate causing feelings of ‘imprisonment’ and ‘impotence’. A long-term lack of co-operation and entrenched opposition to any form of innovation saps relationship vitality. Efforts to improve or gain better equity are unrequited. The result is poor supply chain practices and processes and poor returns i.e., 1+1=1.5.” 

This negativity has a significant impact on the teams, the staff and the working environment. Individuals feel the pressure of their responsibilities but are unable to fulfil them because the process for joint working has not been defined. This leads to stress, a poisonous working environment and people behaving badly.

 This regrettable situation is in urgent need of fixing, it is not irretrievable. What is needed is clear management direction to put in place a structure that allows a working environment to develop based upon leadership, trust, commitment and co-operative behaviour. It will promote effective team working and bring together the joint enterprise into an efficient machine for delivering high value goods, services and successful projects.

 The rebuilding process starts with setting up a target operating model which is described in practical, step-by-step fashion in our book Implementing and Managing Collaborative Relationships.