The Revolving Door Problem: Internal Alignment is Critical Before Pursuing Partnerships

How many times have you visited a partner organization only to find out that others from your organization have just met with the same people? It happens all the time. Several years ago, I was waiting in the lobby of a well-known government institution waiting for a meeting I’d scheduled to talk about potential partnerships. I looked up and was surprised to see two colleagues from my organization leaving the building at the same time – figuratively I was going in the revolving door as they were coming out! I flagged them down and learned that they’d just met with a team that was adjacent to the one I was waiting to see.

This posed several obvious problems. First, we potentially wasted people’s time because we hadn’t coordinated our schedules, which is not a great way to engender confidence and trust with the partner. Second, because we weren’t coordinated on our messaging and pitch, we risked sowing confusion about what we could really bring to the table, therefore weakening our negotiating position. Finally, being disorganized damaged our reputation as an organization that could be relied upon to deliver on a partnership.

In that case, my colleagues and I quickly recognized that we were putting our partnerships and organizational reputation at risk. We compared notes in the lobby and salvaged our relationships by building a more unified approach for future meetings. No real damage was done, and in fact, we created a stronger partnership by working together.

The Revolving Door Problem is extremely common in big organizations, even if you don’t literally run into colleagues in the lobby. I recently met a sustainability director who had been approached by no fewer than three representatives from the same NGO about developing a partnership. He was lamenting to me that he wasn’t sure which team had the lead or should be relied upon to deliver on a partnership.

The challenge often begins with a lack of role clarity or ownership of key relationships with prospective partners. Responsibility for social impact partnerships is often distributed through a large organization at both the HQ and field levels. At a company, it might sit in the CSR group, a marketing team, a product team, or procurement organization. At an NGO, it can sit with individual project teams, in business development, or as part of a strategy function. At government agencies, responsibility could be shared across any number of offices at HQ or the field.

So, how can organizations avoid the Revolving Door Problem, or at least minimize it?

First, internal coordination is key. Before anyone at an organization engages with external partners, it’s critical to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve through a partnership, how that partnership would advance the objectives of your organization and the partner, and who should approach prospective partners.

Second, make sure you have a thorough understanding of the organization(s) you are approaching. What partnerships have they done in the past and how did they originate? Are there different divisions or business units within the partner that might have different goals in a partnership? Who have been the champions of cross-sector partnerships at the organization?

Finally, map out what your organization can bring to a partnership. Determine the key assets that might have value to another organization – these could be expertise, access to stakeholders, channels, credibility, funding, or content. Decide how these assets can be complimentary to the partner, and how they might be valued. Is there a timeline for execution of the partnership, and how would you see it being managed? How are you going to measure your results?

Some larger organizations have developed a partnership account management structure, similar to what you might see in a fundraising, business development, or sales function. In this model, it’s the responsibility of each account manager to have a complete understanding of prospective partners, their motivations, competitors, industry dynamics, and operations. In some cases, an account manager may handle several partners from the same sector, industry or region. In other cases, when the partner is large or complex (and if staffing allows), a single account manager may be assigned to a single organization. All communications to prospective partners should – initially at least – be run through the account manager and all explorations and meetings should be tracked in a Customer Relationship Management tool like Salesforce or HubSpot.

There’s no question that cross-sector collaborations are challenging and complex, especially if more than two partners are involved. But one way to build a foundation for a strong partnership is to avoid the Revolving Door Problem in the first place.