Every time someone mentions partnership to me, I cringe and break out in a cold sweat. Visions of past failures spring to mind, the horror, the pain, and the loss of time and money. In fact, just like you, I could outline the situations, write a "oh, woe is me" article but I won’t. (Though if you want to we could exchange experiences over a glass of suds at the annual conference in April, in Cornwall. We’ll just see whose experience is worse and who gets to buy the next glass of suds.) By the way, I’ve got both business stories and corporate stories so come prepared!

Then I give myself a shake.

The truth is I have a tremendous number of successful partnerships. If I was a professional baseball player and was batting .700 I’d be paid millions. Just because of few failures I shouldn’t be afraid to ‘step up to the batter’s box’.

 Experience has taught me to be much more diligent about who/what/why we create partnerships. In fact, my pre-partnership routine, that I now use, quickly eliminates those who are not sincere, who are not prepared, who are not committed to success. Partnerships, the very word, imply win-win for both parties. For all of us, time is money and any time wasted is often at the expense of providing service to our Customers.

 Here are some of the components of my pre-partnership routine:

1. Define the project or core focus of the partnership. All too often people want to create a partnership because they want to work with you, or they don’t want to work alone. Though this will sound harsh, if there isn’t a solid business reason for the partnership, then the partnership is doomed to fail.
2. Everyone in the partnership needs to know what each party brings to the table in the way of knowledge, skill, abilities and experience.
3. Verify that the vision, mission, values & goals of the partner are compatible to yours. This appears to be straight forward, and it is. What we know is this, a conflict based on values will stop the partnership from becoming operationally effective. For example, in my company, we believe that "the Customer is everything", if our potential partners cannot embrace this view we simply will not enter into a partnership.
4. Develop mutual ideas, goals and strategies for the partnership. Review these to ensure that there is compatibility between the partners.
5. Set time limits as to when certain aspects of the emerging partnership must be completed. Be sure to establish regular meetings. Experience shows that with (almost) every partnership there is an initial high level of enthusiasm, then it wanes. My recommendation is to assign deadlines and complete the partnership quickly, or suffer the consequences of losing a lot of time.
6. Conduct your due diligence and ask yourself, ‘can we trust each other’? Enthusiasm for the partnership and visions of zillions of profit dollars, can and will cloud our usually sound judgment practices.
7. Work hard at defining the roles and responsibilities of each party, leave nothing to assumption. This is a great opportunity to verify how serious your potential partner is about the partnership. If a partner is not prepared to devote time, money, and resources to the partnership they simply are taking advantage of you.
8. Determine, and document (very early on in the process) a sound financial compensation plan. Experience shows we wait far too long into the process to have this conversation.
9. Identify and agree upon a process to resolve conflicts, because there will be some.
10. Document, document, and document. In six months, a year, two years or more, the reasons for the partnership, its values, goals and other important information may be forgotten.

 Lastly I check my attitude and remind myself that the majority of my partnerships are successful and profitable. Mark Twain said, "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people do that, but the really great make you feel that you too, can somehow be great." Partnerships generate profit, and this is the theme of the annual conference in Cornwall. I look forward to telling you more and listening to your partnership lessons. Get ready to buy a round of suds.

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Copyright 1996 © Sid Ridgley