How good a partner are you? One way to answer this question is to ask yourself some other questions: How successful are your partnerships? Are you getting everything you expected from them? Have you ever wondered what you could do to improve your partnerships? One of the keys to having a good partnership is the ability to be a good partner.While this may sound elementary, it is tougher than it seems. According to Randy McPherson, CEO of CARA Collision, the key is “finding the right partner with the right skills and the right vision.”What are the right skills for being in a partnership? What are the roles and responsibilities of a good partner? These are important questions because all good partnerships start with the individual. If you want a good partnership, then you need to know how to be a good partner.
The genesis of every partnership is a need that must be fulfilled. Whether in our personal life or in business, we turn to others when we have a need and must enlist the aid of another to get it satisfied. Therefore, it’s first up to us to understand what it is we need from the partnership. If two businesses come together in a partnership, what does each offer the other as a basis for the alliance? For a typical example we can turn to the automobile manufacturing and rental businesses. Automobile manufacturers need customers to buy cars; car rental businesses need a source of inexpensive and reliable automobiles. In an effort to fulfill its needs, Avis partners with General Motors to provide itself with a fleet of cars at a reduced rate. Hertz partners with Ford in a similar manner. Each has a need and each gets
it met in the form of a partnership. While this may sound like common business sense, how the partnership actually operates depends on the partnering skills of the people involved in managing it. Although the partnership may appear to be between faceless corporations, it is people who form and manage partnerships. They are the ones who must have the skills and attributes—the Partnering Intelligence—to create a successful business relationship.
