The Partnering Solution: A Powerful Strategy For Managers, Professionals, And Employees At All Levels
288
The Partnering Solution: A Powerful Strategy For Managers, Professionals, And Employees At All Levels
288Paperback
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781564147899 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 03/16/2005 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d) |
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Babel Problem, the Partnering Solution
Everyone has encountered the Babel Problem, the tendency of all organizations and alliances to fragment into different and often warring factions. The factions speak different languages, hold different interests, and pursue different goals. As a result, the whole shrinks to become less, often much less, than the sum of its parts. The Babel Problem wreaks havoc in the companies in which we work, the associations to which we belong, the colleges that educate us, the hospitals that care for us, and the government agencies that protect us. The first half of this chapter examines the Babel Problem in detail: its pervasiveness, the forms it takes, the symptoms that signal its existence, the root causes that create it, and the economic forces that fuel it.
The second half of this chapter explores the Partnering Solution: its sources, its history, its core content, how it differs from other forms of teambuilding, and why it works. The Partnering Solution solves the Babel Problem. Based on our work in more than 200 projects, the Partnering Solution is a structured method that improves communications and bottomline performance in organizations and alliances of all kinds: large corporations, small associations, outsourcing, mergers, customer relations, strategic alliances, government, and nonprofit. The Partnering Solution provides insight, strategy, skills, and tools for managers, employees, and members at all levels.
The Babel Problem
The CIA announced that they plan to cooperate more openly with the FBI. They just haven't told the FBI.
— Jay Leno
Remember: When the lion lies down with the lamb is when Marketing will cooperate with Accounting.
— Sign posted over accounting department coffee pot
Some two-thirds of mergers either fail or fall far short of expectations.
— Dennis C. Carey and Dayton Ogden,
The Human Side of M&A
I discovered that the college was run as a kind of organized anarchy.
— College president
The Babel Problem attacks not only large corporations and strategic alliances, but small businesses and civic organizations as well. It affects churches, professional firms, labor unions, hospitals. It wreaks havoc not only with bureaucracies, but also with small groups, teams, and collaborations of just a few individuals.
We lost a major customer. Programming blames marketing, marketing blames support, support blames quality assurance. We're putting much more energy into attacking each other than we are into solving the problem.
— Software company vice president
We were so certain they were the right company to outsource our facilities management to, they have so much experience and look so good on paper. But they just did not understand our priorities, and they were too difficult to work with.
— Bank facilities manager
This is supposed to be a place that follows a Higher Order, the Golden Rule, but our internal politics can be brutal. The worship committee fights with the pastoral task force, and the social committee fights with everyone.
— Church committee member
The merger looked so strong on paper. We all stood to make a lot of money from it. But the two companies failed to work together. We talked past each other, never listened, never worked together. Our cultures were just too different.
— Engineering firm president
Forms of the Babel Problem
The Babel Problem thrives in large organizations and small ones, formal bureaucracies and informal groups. It is so pervasive, so much a part of our daily lives, that we may fail to register appropriate concern when it occurs. The Babel Problem takes predictable forms. Recognizing those forms provides an initial foothold in solving the problem.
Departments at War
In this, the most visible version of the Babel Problem, two organizations or departments that claim to be partnering are actually at war with each other. Often the battles are out in the open: the departments or organizations express their disagreements openly and vocally. They criticize each other openly and perhaps even publish memos and e-mails about each other. When this kind of warfare occurs in alliances, it usually takes place at grassroots levels between people who were not involved in formulating the partnering arrangement, but are responsible for carrying it out. When this kind of conflict occurs in organizations, it often involves departments that attempt to monitor or control other departments, such as quality control, accounting, auditing, and other regulatory departments.
Not My Job
In this form of the Babel Problem, people who work at grassroots levels in organizations that are supposed to be partnering with each other acknowledge the partnering arrangement; however, they don't think that it applies to them. For example, people working in the accounting department of a software company know and even applaud their company's efforts to build strong relationships with its customers. At the same time, though, the department maintains rigid accounting practices that make it difficult for customers to do business with the company. The accounting practices undo much of the partnering work that the company's marketing and technology departments achieve.
If We're the Experts, Why Aren't You Listening to Us?
In this version of the Babel Problem, organizations or departments that are supposed to possess "expert" knowledge approach others in a oneway, top-down manner. This can occur in outsourcing, when a company partners with a service provider that possesses strong technical or professional skills. This version of the Babel Problem also occurs inside organizations when a strong technical department such as research, strategy, or statistics tries to partner with internal user or customer groups.
Quiet Standoff
In this form of the Babel Problem, departments or organizations don't battle openly so much as they ignore each other. Here the issue with conflict is that there is not enough of it. Standoff often occurs when one department's role involves planning for another, as when a corporate office develops strategies and policies for field offices. In alliances, standoff occurs when one organization ignores the relationships it is supposed to be building with the other. Standoff occurs in mergers and acquisitions when organizations fail to make use of the resources their new partner organizations potentially bring to them.
All of these forms of the Babel Problem take place not only in large corporations, government bureaucracies, universities, and hospitals, but also in small companies, professional firms, civic groups, and informal partnerships.
In fact, the Babel Problem can affect an "organization" or "alliance" of just two people. For example, two painters (maybe they are professionals, or maybe they are a husband-wife "alliance") tackle the job of repainting a kitchen or wallpapering a living room. They divide the work to take advantage of the talents and interests each brings to the job. With a brush, one tackles the trim and fine detail, while the other, with a roller, covers the large spaces.
If they don't partner effectively, all four forms of the Babel Problem described here can occur. They may argue about who will work in what area and what to do when the large spaces meet the trim: That's not my job! They may feel the need to offer or reject advice and feedback from each other: I'm supposed to be the expert! If their arguments about who should paint what and when escalate, they can go to war. But when matters finally deteriorate, they will likely end in standoff.
Symptoms of the Babel Problem
The Bible's portrayal of the Tower of Babel story provides useful insight into the symptoms of the Babel Problem. The Bible has it that the people stopped working on the tower when the Almighty caused them to be "confused" and to "speak in different languages." These conditions describe four symptoms of any fragmented organization or alliance:
1. The overall work of the organization stops and the people become confused.
2. In their confusion, the people focus more on the goals of their own immediate group than on the goals of the organization at large.
3. To make matters worse, people in the different groups speak a kind of different language.
4. When people speak different languages, they don't listen to each other.
Beyond these, we observe that a fifth symptom of the Babel Problem is either too much or too little conflict. Healthy, successful organizations and alliances have a reasonable amount of conflict, which is an outcome of normal discourse. An absence of discord, rather than the absence of problems, often signals the denial. It's not that healthy organizations and alliances don't argue, but that they argue well.
Causes of the Babel Problem
The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction, and malperformance.
— Peter Drucker
Why does the Babel Problem occur? Why do so many organizations and alliances fragment into warring factions? What are the roots and causes of the Babel Problem?
Eight different factors cause the Babel Problem. Each is powerful on its own. But combined, as they often are in real-world organizations and alliances, the factors form a mighty force.
1. Division of labor. Robert Michels, one of the first organizational sociologists, theorized that fragmentation in organizations is inevitable. His groundbreaking 1920s text, Political Parties, observes that organizations must divide labor in order to accomplish anything significant. However, he contends that dividing labor creates different roles and responsibilities, and thus leads inevitably to an organization's members pursuing different self-interests.
2. People bond emotionally with smaller groups. Some psychologists believe that people identify more closely with smaller groups rather than with an overall organization because it is easier to form a human connection with the smaller group. The larger organization is more removed, more abstract. Even in organizations that are mid-size or small, people gravitate to groups and subgroups that are smaller and easier to bond with than the organization overall.
3. People chemistry. Often the most visible and visceral cause of the Babel Problem is that, at a personal level, the people involved in an organization or alliance simply do not and apparently cannot get along with each other. People themselves who are entangled in troubled organizations or alliances don't talk about the division of labor or bonds with the smaller group. They focus more on their gut-level dislike and distrust of "the other guys." This kind of conflict arises often in mergers and acquisitions, and in outsourcing situations that bring different organizational cultures together. It also arises in organizations when departments talk, look, and work in ways that differ significantly from each other.
4. Unclear or conflicting goals. Even when organizations have articulate goals and alliances have detailed contracts, the goals that percolate down to specific departments and groups can be unclear. Frequently, when departments clash over tactics and details, the conflict traces back to unclear organizational goals. Both departments may have quite a different understanding of the organization's goals, and that difference in understanding fuels conflict in their everyday work.
5. Insufficient procedures. Sometimes the chief roadblock is not strategy or people chemistry, but nuts-and-bolts processes and procedures. In recent decades, our organizations have become flatter, less hierarchical, and more informal. This trend enhances innovation and speeds decision-making, but it can also create chaos. Many organizations have less than optimal processes for handing off work between departments, managing employee performance, and resolving differences of opinion across groups.
6. Misunderstanding the meaning of "customer service." Service provider firms and internal service departments in organizations have done much useful partnering work under the banner of "customer service." In some cases, this effort has helped insensitive departments and organizations to pay more attention to what their customers really need and to provide a more useful service. In growing numbers of cases, though, both customers and service providers have taken the intention of customer service too far, translating it into simply whatever customers ask for. Though it is important to listen to the customer, the customer is not always right. Productive partnering is more two-way, more collaborative, and may involve challenging the customer as much as simply doing what one is told.
7. Ineffective leadership. Leading any organization, even a simple one, can be challenging. In partnering, developing effective leadership can be particularly difficult. How does one lead when there is no formal hierarchy, perhaps even no organization, new alignments, and untested working arrangements? Every year, hundreds of books and articles are published on leadership, and many offer valuable insight and advice. However, little has been written and established about the nature of effective leadership in partnering situations.
8. Overall, underestimating the difficulty of achieving alignment. We observe this phenomenon in nearly every partnering situation. Even in complex alliances and organizations with experienced executives, people consistently and significantly underestimate how much effort it takes to achieve alignment and partnering among the different constituencies.
5 Economic Forces That Fuel the Babel Problem
In the future, all the work on the planet will be outsourced.
— Scott Adams, The Dilbert Future
Five economic forces are causing more meetings between organizations, departments, and people who "got along great" for many years working apart. These five forces in our economy provide further fuel for creating the Babel Problem:
1. Decentralized organizations. Decentralized organizations dominate our economy to such an extent that it may be difficult to recall how different organizations were not too long ago. In the 1940s and 50s most organizations emphasized control, bureaucracy, alignment, and authority. Most organization charts were tall pyramids with many layers of middle management.
Currently, decentralized organizations dominate in our economy because they are "leaner," make decisions more quickly, and implement change more rapidly. However, decentralized organizations also breed Babel Problems in that they often do little to integrate their various departments. Decentralized organizations in which departments don't communicate with each other can easily become "Departments at War."
2. Outsourcing. Outsourcing is very popular in our economy at present because it enables organizations to get rid of functions that distract from their core mission and competencies, and has the potential to save the organization money. However, outsourcing often creates Babel Problems in the communications and coordination between service provider firms and customer organizations. Customer organizations can demand too much or too little information from service provider firms, and service firms can focus too much on providing the technical aspects of the service while neglecting the communications that the customer organization needs.
3. Strategic alliances. Organizations form strategic alliances with other organizations for a wide variety of reasons: to develop products and services together that neither one could do alone, to join forces against a common competitor or threat, and to increase market share. Each time organizations form a strategic alliance they also create a breeding ground for the Babel Problem, as the new alliance depends on the organizations communicating and collaborating with each other.
4. Mergers and acquisitions. Merger activity has been high for several years running. However, mergers have been popular for many years. As long ago as the 1930s, Will Rogers commented on the business world's love of growing by merging and acquiring. Mergers and acquisitions have strong potential to build an organization's core competencies, increase revenues and profit, and build economies of scale.
At the same time, mergers and acquisitions often breed Babel Problems because they can create "forced marriages" of organizations with very different cultures and values. Mergers that look good on paper can fail when people in both organizations are unable to solve the Babel Problems they face.
5. Rising customer expectations. Customers' rising expectations is a fifth source of the Babel Problem. When customers demand more of the organizations that supply them with goods and services, organizations often respond by trying to listen, respond, and build more effective long-term working relationships. Unlike the other four trends fueling the Babel Problem, this one is rooted more in social forces than in organizational structure or strategy. Over the past few decades, individual consumers and organizational customers alike have come to demand more from the organizations.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Partnering Solution"
by .
Copyright © 2005 William C. Ronco and Jean S. Ronco.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
Chapter 1. The Babel Problem, the Partnering Solution,
Chapter 2. A Partnering Solution Album: 12 Key Case Applications,
Chapter 3. 4 Classic Partnering Cases,
Chapter 4. Taking Stock: Assessment Strategies and Tools,
Chapter 5. Building Trust,
Chapter 6. Clarifying Goals,
Chapter 7. Implementing Key Processes,
Chapter 8. Raising the Bar: Developing Partnering Opportunities,
Chapter 9. Partner, Heal Thyself: Addressing Key Internal Issues Essential for External Partnering,
Chapter 10. Improving Meetings and Group Communications Skills,
Chapter 11. Improving One-on-One Partnering Communications Skills,
Chapter 12. Partnering Leadership: Translating Partnering Initiatives Into Individual Actions,
Chapter 13. Death by Outsourcing: The Partnering Mystery Case,
Chapter 14. Planning Your Own Partnering,
Suggested Reading,
Index,
A Note for Readers Groups,
About the Authors,