Businesspeople understand how easy it can be to get lost in the details of daily operations. It is easier to misalign when you work with business partners. Business partners often need more time to see the big picture and take a step back.
You can improve your relationships by using proven collaboration methods to align on large-picture goals. This will help you, your partner, and your clients deliver better results.
Many studies and books have been written about creating a shared vision. John Kotter, a Harvard University professor, is passionate about the importance and effectiveness of a shared vision for driving success. PMI, for example, teaches how to create a shared goal.
Unfortunately, shared vision statements are often just words on a page that belittle traction. You can boost your big-picture goals by using proven collaboration methods.
These are just three examples:
1, Collaboration in Project Planning:
Make it more inclusive and collaborative. The benefits of collaborative planning within a classroom setting have been well-known for decades. According to the National Education Association, such collaboration can increase creativity among teachers and help students improve their higher-level thinking skills.
It’possiblele to have a collaborative, inclusive approach to project planning in business. This is especially true regarding ensuring everyone involved is focused and aligned on the big picture.
Even if one partner has a clear goal, involving the other in the planning stages is essential. This will help you refine your vision and set the mindset for achieving the plan.
These planning initiatives can still go through formal procedures. You don’t have to give up your decision-making power, but you do not have to. You can create a shared vision, build trust, and encourage buy-in from all parties if you involve your partners from the beginning.
2. Foster Better Communication
For any business partnership to be successful, communication is critical. Open communication makes it easier to maintain sight of the bigger-picture goal and priorities. This requires more than active listening.
Elayna Fernandez (international keynote speaker and two-time TEDx lecturer) explained recently in an email conversation that “Active listening” is an excellent place to start. Effective communication is only possible when leaders, colleagues, and partners validate one another. Validation is the first step to creating an atmosphere of authenticity, vulnerability, and belonging. It is essential to validate your partners whenever they share their thoughts, experiences, or ideas to foster a positive and inclusive environment. This creates deeper connections, just as in our personal lives, allowing for greater self-expression because everyone feels safe, supported, and seen.
You don’t have to accept the ideas of your business partners. It’s about acknowledging the value of their views and opinions, even if you end up going in a different direction. This creates a positive environment where everyone is more open to sharing their ideas with the team. It is easier to provide constructive feedback and keep everyone on the same page about your primary goals.
Consistency in communication is critical. Whether weekly phone calls or biweekly emails, communication will have a more significant impact than you may think.
3. Analyze Big-Picture Data and Share It
It is essential to attach KPIs to big-picture goals. If the goal is to improve customer satisfaction, then there should be KPIs that can measure the success of these initiatives. This could be reducing complaints, improving customer service call resolution times, or increasing review scores for products and services of one partner.
Each partner should agree to share information to help measure their success and contribution to the bigger-picture goal. Data points related to the big-picture purpose can be transferred to allow for transparent analysis of which actions (or aren’t) making the big picture a reality.
This can lead to collaboration between partners to identify and improve actions or initiatives that will help to achieve the larger-picture goal.
Partner KPIs are used to measure the effectiveness of the partnership. It would help if you also considered critical KPIs for the alliance, which include the values and experience of a partner, their satisfaction with the block, and whether or not they have fulfilled the work scope.
Surveys and other data-based assessments can help you determine the strengths and weaknesses in these relationships and whether you need to seek a new partner to better align with your long-term goals.
True alignment
Before any project gets started, it is essential to ensure that partners are aligned on the big-picture goals. It is easier for organizations and their plans to be aligned if they have buy-in and genuine collaboration during the planning phase.
More open and collaborative partnerships will result in greater trust between the parties involved. This will help them to be better equipped for achieving their big-picture goals.
