Supporter or Partner: 5 Steps to Engaging Business Relationships
Supporter or Partner: 5 Steps to Engaging Business Relationships
Supporter relationships are evidenced by business interactions that are more transactional. Supporters focus more on what they are getting, rather than what they are giving. Supporters emphasize the importance of clients’ understanding and valuing their expertise. They tend to receive more crisis calls as a reactionary response from the businesses because something hasn’t turned out as expected.
Partnership relationships are evidence by a shared investment and mutual interest in business results. Partners are engaged with business leaders and contacts. They proactively take the pulse of the business to understand what’s working well and what isn’t. They place more focus more on how they’re helping the business than what they’re getting out of it. (more…)
Capital One has a frequently aired commercial with the tag line “What’s in your wallet?” It conveys the message that if you possess their credit card, you will have greater spending power and ability to acquire the things you want and need. But if it stays in your wallet, and you don’t use it, you won’t activate the power it holds. You need to not only have it, you need to use it.
A key requirement of good leadership is to ensure that the organization and its initiatives are sustainable, both during and beyond the leader’s tenure there. This means that the company’s values, beliefs, goals and objectives cannot be dependent upon a single or few people as the glue holding it together. Situations will inevitably occur where such individuals are no longer a part of the organization, and thus the glue fails.
Leaders spend a great deal of time focusing on building strong teams, selecting the right people with critical skill sets, managing diversity of thought and matching complementary strengths. They structure their organizations based on the capabilities needed to accomplish organizational objectives and optimize opportunities to control as many variables as possible to ensure a cohesive team.
Imagine that you’ve just joined a new organization or department or been appointed to lead a significant new project. You’re excited about your new role and have been given a charge by your new leader regarding specific outcomes and metrics to achieve. You took some time to evaluate the challenge ahead and get to know the team, and you’re ready to make some “quick wins.” There are obvious areas for improvement that will impact organizational metrics favorably. As you meet with your colleagues and team members to introduce your plans, their responses are muted. They don’t seem to appreciate the value of these initiatives. You continue to meet with key people one-on-one to gain their support and probe for issues, but you keep hitting a wall filled with excuses, pushback and noncommitment. What’s wrong? You’ve entered a “no wake zone.” 
A CEO recently expressed concern that there was an environment of fear among his employees in the workplace. He was trying to understand the underlying issues driving this, to determine how to address it. His sincerity was commendable, and it provided an opportunity to identify drivers of fear by starting at the top of the organization.