Organisational Partnerships are often created through common interests and mutual interests, common goals and transactions, some of which are embodied in written contracts and much of it entrusted to psychological contracts (such as trust, reliability, etc). While working through planning, action and implementation, various dynamics may emerge - some of which that strengthens the partnership and some, which are uncomfortable and dissonant that threaten relationships between the partners. Issues of power and hierarchy may respect, judgements over competence and efficiency may create loss of reliability, and clash of cultures between organisations may lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication that threaten the spirit with which the organisations had formed the partnership in the first place.
ChangeMantras helps organisations build and protect mutual trust, empathy for each other and creating systems and processes for equitability of power. With the help of the tools and frameworks used for Organisational Development and Leadership Coaching, our EUM certified consultants work with organisations to help form, strengthen, sustain and replenish partnerships between organisations.
Recent initiatives of Partnership Brokering:- A Japanese organisation and an Indian organisation that has been working in partnership with each other for 6 years, finds the relationship requiring some work. Despite having a very strong collaboration with each other over the years, with the increase in teams and changes in leadership, organisations reported a strain in the partnership experienced through communication gaps, passive aggression, confusion over role boundaries, withheld accusations. ChangeMantras works with the two organisations to enable the organisations understand the nature of tensions using the EUM and systems dynamics and helps leadership of organisations to take appropriate measures for alignment building.
Two non-profit organisations in India decided to collaborate on a social action project wherein one organisation was to learn and implement technologies built by the other. The organisations started with an effort to understand each others’ culture, commonality and differences in values and identifying areas of potential resonance and dissonance. Every four to six months, the two organisations review the nature of the partnership to see how it has evolved, and work with the emerging manifestations of the dynamics between the systems. This helps identification and addressing of challenges, miscommunication and tensions that may emerge in interfaces and co-working.