Partnership gets a lot of lip-service: we want to be loved for what we’re doing now,  we want them to change, not us, we want them to give it to us; we don’t want to earn it….What it really takes to be partners? What kind of skills and knowledge partners got to have and what behaviours they have to be engaged in?  You might feel the signs of broken business relationship,  but it is hard to diagnose. If you observe that between you (or your organization) and you business partner there are occasions of interpersonal conflicts, “us and them” mentality, defensiveness, finger pointing, non-constructive criticism, there is a good chance that you relationship need repair. You can fix them, if you follow the right steps.Business Relationship Management  is partially art and partially science. First, you need to earn trust in the eyes of your partner and prove your credibility and second, you need to develop right competencies of yours and capabilities of your organization. 

1. It takes two to tango!
How to fix broken
business relationship
Presented by Svetlana Sidenko
President of IT Chapter
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www.itchapter.com
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MsC (Admin) PMP® , ITIL® Expert, CGEIT®
ITSM®, ISO 20000 Management Consultant
TIPA® Lead Assessor, COBIT® 5, ISO 27002
PRINCE2® Practitioner,
Certified Process Design Engineer(CPDE) ®,
Change Management Registered Practitioner

2. To start with: short survey about YOUR
organization…
1. Over past 5 years, did you get involved in business partnerships?
A. Yes
B. No
2. What did you expect from the partnership?
A. Grow/expand my Business.
B. Improve company reputation
C. Grow network so my business can get more references
D. All of the above
3. Were your partnerships always successful?
A. Yes
B. No
C. I had both successful and unsuccessful partnerships
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3. To start with: short survey about YOUR
organization…(continued)
4. If your partnership was NOT successful, did your company experienced….
A. The loss of investment
B. Wasted energy
C. Loss of market share to competitors
D. Lost hopes
E. All of the above
5. If your partnership was successful, did your company achieve…
A. New client base
B. Revenue growth
C. Improved Reputation
D. New skills and “know how”
E. All of the above
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4. Partnership types
• Joint Venture by two or more parties to form a single
entity to undertake a certain project (can be formal
or informal)
• Outsourcing (local or global)
• Affiliate marketing (tracked referrals i.e.
Amazon.com)
• Licensing
• Franchising
• Distribution
• “Coopetition”
• Friendships
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5. Partnerships are different
Nature:
• Temporary
• Permanent
Duration:
• Long term
• Short term
• One time event
• Trial
Scope:
• Vertical (between a supplier & a customer, competitors, two or
more businesses)
• Horizontal (between departments)
Geography:
• Local
• Global
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6. Partnerships common elements
• Goals —
who
wants
what
• Responsibilities
—
who
does
what
• Rules —
how
it’s
done
(based
on
business
and
personal
culture
and
a:tudes)
• Expectations.
One
primary
that
they
all
share
is
reciprocity.
The
goal
of
each
alliance
is
to
add value and
worth
to
each
person
or
enCty
involved.
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7. What is Value?
VALUE
Expected Business Outcomes
PerceptionPreference
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8. Successful partnerships result in…
• Increased production
• Advantages of scale, scope & speed
• Enhanced product development
• Skills building and shared expertise
• Increased market penetration
• Keep competitors out
• Increased sales
• New business opportunities through new
products & services; Increase exports
• Financial benefits
• New businesses creation
• Reduced costs
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9. Unsuccessful partnerships result in…
• Loss of precious focus and energy of senior
management
• Little or no revenue
• Drained capital and productivity
• Damaging morale
• Employee attrition
• Disappointment
• Toxic working environment
• Loss of marker share and even a business
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10. Signs of broken business relationship
• Interpersonal problems
• “Us” and “them” mentality
• “Blame game”, finger pointing, defensiveness
• Non-constructive criticism from both sides
• Failure of Partner to communicate critical information
• Parties start to keep track of reciprocation
• Slow response to enquiries
• “Passive aggressive” behavior
• People bring in third parties to confirm their suspicions about the other person
Results : failure to reach expected business outcomes
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11. Business Relationship Management Institute
BRMI Incorporated in March 2013 with a mission to:
“Define, inspire, value, and promote the key traits of effective Business
Relationship Management”
This mission is fulfilled through:
A learning community of BRM professionals
A Wiki collaboration platform
BRM Interactive Body of Knowledge™
Professional BRM training, development and certification
BRM research and publications
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12. BRM as a Role, a Discipline and
Organizational Capability
An Organizational Capability is everything it takes, both visible and
behind the scenes, that makes producing a good or providing a service
possible, meaning having people with the right competencies to play the
roles required by defined processes, and armed with useful
techniques and tools, all backed by management systems that create
incentives for performance and improvement.
• As a role, the Business Relationship Manager is a connector and
translator between partners
• As a discipline, Business Relationship Management embodies a set
of competencies (knowledge, skills, behaviours) that foster productive,
value-producing relationships between business partners
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13. BRM competencies DNA™
• Develop
• Nurture
• Advance
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14. It takes two to tango!
"It takes two to do the trust tango-the one who risks (the trustor) and the one who is trustworthy (the trustee);
each must play their role”
Charles H. Green, The Trusted Advisor
You can sail on a ship by yourself,
Take a nap or a nip by yourself.
You can get into debt on your own,
There are a lot of things that you can do alone!
But ...It takes two to tango!
Al Hoffman and Dick Manning, 1952
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15. Business Demand Maturity and
Provider Supply Maturity
LEVEL
1
focus
• Cost
savings
• Speed
• OperaConal
needs
LEVEL
1
focus:
• Basic
services
or
products
• Support
LEVEL
2
focus
• Process
orientaCon
• Enable
business
partnerships
• ReorganizaCons,
expansions,
transformaCons
Partner on “Demand” side is learning to exploit the “Provider’s” offerings and harvest value, and the
“Provider” organization learning to become efficient and effective in delivering goods and services
and, especially as maturity increases, shaping Partner demand for value.
*Adapted from BRMBOK
LEVEL
2
focus
• Establish
common
infrastructure
• Build
credibility
• Improve
producCon
and
delivery
LEVEL
3
focus
• Business
growth
and
innovaCon
• Business
integraCon
LEVEL
3
focus:
• ConCnuous
strategy
and
planning
• Expand
and
extend
“TacCcal”
BRM
“Strategic”
BRM
Focus
is
Supply
Management
Focus
is
Demand
Management
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16. Climbing maturity levels
Credibility = Expertise + Trust
Building TRUST takes time
The elements of trust:
Similarity
Prolonged positive interactions
Appropriate behaviour (in business partner’s eyes)
Consistent behaviour – do what you say you will do!
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17. Trust can be earned
• Not by expertise alone…
We view as experts those we trust
But we don’t necessarily trust experts!
• …But by relationship management
Active listening
Creating positive interactions with business partners
Helping business partners become self-sufficient
Teaching and coaching
Responding well in difficult business partner encounters
Avoiding defensiveness
By building a multiyear capability roadmap and delivering or showing results against that roadmap
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18. The Strategic Partnership role
Partnership gets a lot of lip-service:
We want to be loved for what we’re doing now
We want them to change, not us
We want them to give it to us; we don’t want to earn it
Partners add value by:
Seeing opportunities that business partners don’t see or want to see
Selling the business partner on the opportunities
Knowing when to cajole
Knowing when to confront
Knowing when to give in
In short, by political behaviour
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19. Broken relationship can be repaired
In case if the problem is in lack of business partner trust due to prior
bad experience…
But they may not tell you that – it’s hard to diagnose….
Can’t be resolved by improving technical performance
You must build back the relationship. Start with ACTIVE LISTENING
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20. Active listening steps and tips
• Face the speaker and maintain eye contact.
– Tip: no computer screen in between
• Be present, pay attention, do not get distracted
– Tip: hide away your phone
• Keep an open mind, listen without judging or criticizing
– Tip: do not jump into conclusions
• Try to picture what the person is saying
– Tip: think only about what the other person is saying
• Try to feel what the speaker is feeling
– Tip: read the non-verbal sings of body language
• Paraphrase and give feedback often
– Tip: acknowledge feelings such as “You must have felt terribly”
or event just by “uh huh.”
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21. Active listening steps and tips (cont’d)
• Do NOT offer solution. Do NOT interrupt.
Interrupting sends a variety of messages. It
says:
“I’m more important than you are.”
“I know better than you.”
“What I am saying is more accurate or relevant.”
“I don’t really care what you say.”
“I am in a contest and I’m going to win.”
– Tip: wait for speaker to pause to ask your
question
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22. Good news and bad news
• The good news is that even some of the most strained
relationships can be repaired. a negative relationship
turned positive can be a very strong one.
– “Going through difficult experiences can be the
makings of the strongest, most resilient relationships”
Susan David, “Emotional Agility.”
• The bad news is that fixing a relationship takes serious
effort.
– “Most people just lower their expectations because it’s
easier than dealing with the real issues at hand,”
Brian Uzzi, “Make Your Enemies Your Allies.”
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23. Science
• Recognize what is happening The longer you ignore relationship issues, the worse they tend
to get and the harder they are to resolve
• Diagnose your relationships
– Technique: “Diagnosing Relationship Quality”. Understanding your partners expectation and
assessing
• Build a plan
– Technique: “Relationship improvement plan” Plan on what will be different if and when this
relationship improves and what are you willing to compromise to create that positive
outcome.
• Visualize the alternative. What do you want this relationship to be like? Remember, this is a
professional partnership, not a friendship.
– Technique: “Relationship Strategy on a page”
• Your vision and goals
• Responsibilities you and your partners are willing to take on
• Rules you are willing to abide by
• Measurements: how you will know that your relationship are successful
• Operating principles: how you will operate
• Measure
– Success of your Business Relationship is measured by the degree of reaching your
expected business outcomes
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24. Art
• Start small, remember – fixing relationship will take time!
• Listen, listen, listen (ACTIVE listening)
• Have prolonged positive interactions
• See your business partners often
• Answer your partners same day they asked, even if it is just an l
acknowledgement
• Be consistent!
• Apply
– Art of influence
– Art of rhetoric
– Art of powerful questions
– Art of body language
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25. In conclusion…some important points
Business Relationship Management is a critical
organizational capability
Demand/Supply maturity is the key factor in determining
strategic or tactical nature of your Business Relationship
Business Relationship Management is a science and is
an art
You can apply proven techniques to build new or to fix
broken Business Relationship
Become a Business Relationship Management artist!
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26. To learn more about Business Relationship
Management
BRMI Interactive Body of Knowledge at
http://brminstitute.org/
Concepts
Processes
Templates, Forms, Diagrams
Community Support
BRMP® Foundation Certification course - 3 days + exam at
www.itchapter.com/training
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27. –Thomas J. Watson, Founder, IBM Corp!
“The
toughest
thing
about
the
power
of
trust
is
that
it's
very
difficult
to
build
and
very
easy
to
destroy.
”
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