Making Partnerships Work

Making partnerships work is a topic that comes up frequently in our work. With making an enterprise work seemingly more complex than ever and requiring an ever-expanding repertoire of skills, the value of having partners vested and engaged in one’s endeavor has become something of a necessity.

At the Agathe Center for Entrepreneurship, we have the privilege of coming along business leaders who recognize the value of partnering and who desire to see partnering contribute to their enterprises reaching their potential. But… rarely is it a smooth and easy path.

The reasons are myriad, starting with the fact that from the beginning we’ve been designed for community, while at the same time having an enemy whose chief strategy has always been from the beginning to separate and isolate. Once you’ve committed to going down the road together, it has always been a fight to stay on the road together.

When we work with enterprise partners who are struggling – and most do, to some degree – it is almost also a matter of what we call alignment. The Built to Last authors – Collins and Porra – wrote, “Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment.” The one percent is important – we need to know where we’re going, but 99 percent is aligning the how and what of getting there, and most importantly, the why.

Partners get out of alignment in the same way your auto does. The constant movement, the road obstacles and hazards, the twisting and turning causes deterioration and the need for maintenance that returns the vehicle to specifications. Partners facing that same kind of relational and directional deterioration and need that same kind of monitoring and maintenance.

As simple as it seems, actually getting your partnership off the road and in for service is an action that partners rarely take enough time for. The result can be greater and sometimes unalterable damage. Be it husbands and wives, best mates from uni days or church, or the optimal complementary professionals, maintaining alignment is critical in an enterprise setting.

Alignment, alignment, alignment. At the Agathe Center, we’re here for you at maintenance time.