Partnering Intelligence

About the Author

Stephen M. Dent is a founding partner of the Minneapolis-based consulting firm The Partnership Continuum, Inc. An award-winning organizational consultant, Dent specializes in developing internal and strategic partnerships. His clients have included major corporations such as AT&T, Northwest Airlines, GE Capital Services, the U.S. Postal Service, and USWest Communications. Through his workshops, speeches, and nearly 20 years of consulting assignments, Dent has trained thousands of managers, executives, and consultants in the benefits of partnering intelligence.

Main Idea

Partnering Intelligence by Stephen M. Dent emphasizes the importance of building strong alliances to create value for businesses. As society moves towards a global economy based on information and communication, business leaders must rediscover and develop lost partnering skills. Dent introduces the Partnership Continuum, a tool that provides a step-by-step process for developing better relationships and more effective partnerships, focusing on a future-oriented mindset.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Rediscovering Partnering
• Partnership Continuum
• Partnering Intelligence
• Past vs. Future Orientation
• Partnership Attributes
• The Four Stages of Relationship Development
• The Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle
• Partnership Development: The Assessing Stage
• The Exploring Stage
• The Initiating Stage
• The Committing Stage
• Case Study in Partnership: A True Story

Rediscovering Partnering

In the information age, technology alone cannot drive business success. The ability to initiate, sustain, and profit from interdependent relationships will be crucial. Creating business partnerships is essential for innovation, growth, and customer satisfaction. Partnerships allow businesses to expand resources, create greater customer satisfaction, reduce expenses, and increase productivity.

"Creating business partnerships is essential to innovation, growth, and customer satisfaction." - Stephen M. Dent

successful business partnerships are plentiful. For instance, a regional telephone company partnered with PCS Wireless to offer combined wireless and landline services using a single number. This collaboration provided customers with features that neither company could offer alone. Similarly, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Northwest Airlines partnered to enhance their service offerings, resulting in greater flexibility, reliability, and shared resources, saving both airlines millions of dollars.

• A regional telephone company and PCS Wireless partnered to provide combined wireless and landline service using one number.
• KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Northwest Airlines partnered to offer greater flexibility, reliability, and shared facilities.

Partnership Continuum

The Partnership Continuum is a deliberate, scientific approach to creating partnerships. It helps move from no partnership to full partnership using a step-by-step approach, focusing on relationship development, partnership development, and past versus future orientation. High partnership intelligence is associated with a future-oriented environment where conflicts are resolved with a win-win attitude and trust is built and maintained.

"Partnerships don't just happen; they are designed." - Stephen M. Dent

The Partnership Continuum model has three components: relationship development, partnership development, and past versus future orientation. The far left side of the model represents no partnership and a past orientation, while the far right side represents full partnership and a future orientation. As partnership intelligence grows, you move along the continuum to the right, increasing your partnership quotient.

• Future-oriented decision-makers don't base decisions on past failures or successes.
• Successful partnerships focus on building trust and creating mutually beneficial relationships.

Partnering Intelligence

"Partnering intelligence" measures the ability to create and sustain healthy, mutually beneficial partnerships. This involves being future-oriented, comfortable with change, embracing a win-win orientation, and developing trust and openness. Partnership intelligence is critical for navigating today’s hypercompetitive business environment.