This time last year we began a collaborative journey with a supplier organisation and their new client. We came together quickly, with uncomfortable deadlines looming and were tasked with designing and delivering a high impact development programme as part of a wider project to transform the way leaders worked in the organisation.
Tackling a project like this is not just about competently delivering the project objectives for our piece of the puzzle, it requires everyone to collaborate effectively too, and this can easily be overlooked. For us it was a chance to walk-the-talk in terms of collaboration and test ourselves.
So with the experience behind us and a second phase of programme delivery about to begin, we decided to gather the reflections of those involved and capture what we learned about the reality of the evolution of this particular collaborative relationship.
What follows is not the whole story though. It’s our perspective in the role of Associates, compared to the Client’s experience. There’s another key piece in this collaborative puzzle and it’s the role of the Supplier. Their part of the story will feature in our next blog post and you’ll see how it completes the picture.
Here’s the story, from two perspectives……
In the beginning we were on our best behaviour and for the client it was a roller coaster of excitement, anxiety and confidence.
We were determined to be responsive to the client from the outset.
We approached the supplier team as partners, rather than simply as suppliers.
Both sides did some things really well that made working together much easier.
This might be business but feelings played a big part throughout the evolution of the relationship, providing information about progress.
There was an impact on the collaborative relationship and the project too…..
We were interested in how taking a backward facing view and indulging in the luxury of hindsight might help us to recognise the key factors that were in place that supported the evolution of the relationship.
Looking back on what actually happened is helpful for the future, allowing us to recreate the conditions for collaboration.
The collaborative relationship changed over time; control shifted as the relationship developed.
The factors that helped the collaborative relationship flourish were described like this…… The factors that helped the collaborative relationship flourish were described like this……
People often want to hack the process, to make things happen faster, so we considered if we could have speeded things up.
Knowing all that we now know, if we time travelled back to the beginning, and did it all again, what would be important to our success?
This story continues as our collaboration with the supplier and the client deepens. What do you recognise in our story that resonates with your experience of how your collaborative relationships have evolved? What did you do differently?
Next month we’ll share the Supplier’s experience and complete the picture.