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Greetings and welcome to the November 2003 issue of the Partnering Intelligence Newsletter, a monthly newsletter for clients and friends of Partnership Continuum, Inc. (www.partneringintelligence.com).
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Write to me anytime at info@partneringintelligence.com. Your feedback is important to me.
A special welcome to our new readers from the Litigators and Leaders Summit in Chicago, IL and the Wells Fargo Learning and Development Conference in Phoenix, AZ. I hope you enjoy reading our newsletter.
A recent high profile merger in the financial industry caused newspaper headlines to scream that “Merger Mondays” are back. The acquisition of FleetBoston by Bank of America in a $43.6 billion deal created the second largest bank in the United States with more than 33 million customers, 5,700 branches in 29 states and $930 billion in assets. "The compelling argument for this merger is the long-term vision for a truly national bank," says Ken Lewis, Bank of America chairman and chief executive, who will serve as CEO of the merged institution with FleetBoston chief executive Charles Gifford as chairman. While some have been critical of the 42% premium paid by Bank of America, Lewis knows that buying a chunk of the national market is easier than fighting for it.
Can Bank of America make this merger happen? Or will other banks reap the real benefit as former FleetBoston customers flee to the competition while the two companies struggle to integrate? Bank of America has been working toward a partnering culture for some time. The leadership knows you have to build trust and create a collaborative working environment. If they can extend this thinking to the former FleetBoston employees, this “national bank” stands a chance of keeping FleetBoston’s hard-earned customers.
If the merger is a success, the question will be who gets the credit. Part of the problem with mergers and acquisitions is that the deal gets all the attention, while the hard work of handling the aftermath goes unrecognized. Bank of America invests in its people’s skills, but in the past few years businesses in general have not. With M&A action increasing, will the business community at large put a similar emphasis on partnering abilities? With tighter money, more expensive deals and a higher cost of failure, all businesses need to ask themselves if they can survive this toughest of all growth strategies.
Most ailing organizations have developed a functional blindness to their own defects. They are not suffering because they cannot resolve their problems, but because they cannot see their problems
– John Gardner (from Greg Smith's Navigator Newsletter)
Asking a question is only embarrassing just for that moment. Not asking is embarrassing and it will haunt you for the rest of your life
– Japanese Proverb (thanks to Kathy Gill)
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe
– Abraham Lincoln
Do you have a favorite quote? We’d love to share it with our readers. Just click below and send it to us. We’ll use it in an upcoming newsletter and give you the credit!
info@partneringintelligence.com
| Feature |
One of the most successful organizations – from both a product development and stock valuation perspective – is the Minnesota-based 3M Company. But even great companies struggle. Addressing the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management’s alumni and students, CEO W. James McNerney Jr. stated that slow product development and poorly executed product introductions were significant sources of 3M’s malaise. So what did he do?
McNerney instituted two important programs. Each focused on a component of leadership. The first was to establish a Leadership Development Institute, while the second was to train his employees on Six Sigma problem solving. Both programs were designed to reach all 70,000 of their employees, with the goal of re-energizing their business culture.
As our Leadership Quadrants model shows, great leaders must be able to balance task responsibilities while enabling creativity and sparking innovation. McNerney said he expects his leaders to be able to define and communicate a clear vision, while also building trust and eliminating fear. The result will be a quality product. “If we can grow our leadership, it’s the most direct way to grow 3M,” he says. 3M’s stock – at this writing – is currently at a 52-week high.
What is the Norm?
Now compare this with what Alan M. Webber, founding editor of Fast Company magazine, wrote about in a recent column in USA Today. Ten years ago, most successful American companies had established executive programs to help develop leadership skills. But recently executive development has virtually evaporated thanks to what Webber calls the “tyranny of the numbers.”
“One of the easiest ways to make your numbers look better is to cut back on ‘non-essential’ items,” he says. “Training and development can be axed. So can programs that give executives – or any workers – new ideas, new techniques, new tactics and new approaches to winning in the workplace. Once the tyranny of the numbers sets in, almost any investment in people is an easy target.”
Webber says that businesses caught in the economic slump are reducing costs by treating their human capital as “disinvestments.” Companies are rolling back family-friendly programs such as telecommuting, flextime and job-sharing, and they are failing to provide adequate training in general.
Webber says that what is amazing is that American business has been down this road before. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. During the economic slump of the 70s, says Webber, “American manufacturers were pre-occupied with financial engineering and lost track of innovation and quality. Japanese firms took advantage of the situation. In a host of industries, from cars to consumer electronics, the Japanese outperformed their US competitors. When US companies woke up, they learned that one defining difference between the two sides was how each treated its workers: The Japanese trusted their people, trained them and listened to them. They invested in them. The Americans treated their workers as a cost of production. The experience prompted a renewed commitment here to worker involvement. The cost and quality gaps gradually closed.”
If You Haven’t Invested in Your Employees . . . Why You Might Want to Start
As American business crawls out of a two-year slump, leaders must start thinking about the fundamental shift that has occurred within the economy itself. Information and knowledge are the source of wealth in this economy, not manufacturing commodities. Hard goods often have a very short shelf-life, but relationships, insights and intelligence never go out of style. Investment in machinery is a short-term investment, but as the 3M example shows, investment in human capability provides the real, long-term payoff.
It’s time corporate leaders understand they can no longer treat their human resources as disposable. That attitude is poison to their business culture and thus to the bottom line. Creativity, innovation, problem solving and an energized attitude keep the business flowing during the good times, but these factors are especially important during the bad times. When business is down, employee loyalty acts like an insurance policy to keep your customers satisfied.
As merger and acquisition activity begins to accelerate over the next 18 months, are your leaders and employees positioned to use their partnering intelligence to make sure you receive the benefits of these investments? As with the Bank of America and FleetBoston example, smart businesses are paying premium prices to satisfy strategic fits that enable them to achieve a vision. You don’t want to squander that investment with people who cannot form the partnerships needed to make an alliance sustainable and profitable.
Partnership Continuum helps business build the kinds of workplace atmospheres that focus people on achieving breakaway results. The key to attaining breakaway results lays in your employees. Is your business disinvesting or investing in its most valuable asset?
To learn more about our Leadership and Employee Development programs or any of our partnering-based programs, contact us at:
+1.612.375.0323 - Worldwide
+1.888.292.0323 -Toll Free USA
+1.612.317.0713 -Worldwide Fax
info@partneringintelligence.com
| Question |
Yes |
Sometimes |
No |
| Does each position have an updated, documented job description? |
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| Do the job descriptions reflect both technical and relational competencies? |
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| Do you provide a Leadership Program to develop all your employees? |
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| Do you provide technical training to improve the skills of your employees? |
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| Do you provide relational training to improve the skills of your employees? |
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| Do your employees attend at least 10 days of development training annually? |
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| Do you have an employee development program with established criteria and objectives? |
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| Total |
Total your score. How many “Yes, Sometimes, No” statements do you have? Is there a trend in your answers? Are you balancing your technical and relational training activities? What steps do you need to take to balance your employee development programs?
Partnership Continuum offers you a complete suite of leader and employee development programs including our foundation Building Smart Partners program. To learn more contact us at:
+1.612.375.0323 - Worldwide
+1.888.292.0323 -Toll Free USA
+1.612.317.0713 -Worldwide Fax
info@partneringintelligence.com
You need two things to ensure you are developing and challenging your high-performing employees. First, you need a core career curriculum that enhances their technical and organizational skills. Second, you need an organizational culture that creates an infrastructure in which they can thrive. Putting the two together is called strengthening your company’s nucleus. For more, read SHRM’s white paper online at:
http://www.shrm.org/hrresources/whitepapers_published/CMS_000427.asp
Carol Asselta and Carolyn Sperl’s white paper provides an insightful and comprehensive look at why organizations need to expand their capabilities through cross-training. Read it online at the Society for Human Resource Management website:
http://www.shrm.org/hrresources/whitepapers_published/CMS_000449.asp
Can you calculate the value of training your employees? Click here to determine how much value a training program can provide your business:
http://www.shrm.org/hrresources/faq_published/Human Resource Development.asp - P1_26
Investing in Your Employees: How To Make the Most of Your Assets by Andrea Bargsley and Patti Hill offers a compelling reason why losing employees is a losing proposition. Read it online at:
http://www.refresher.com/!abphinvesting.html
Once again I have the honor of presenting our Partner Relationship Management seminar to clients in Southeast Asia. The current schedule is: December 8-9 in Bangkok, Thailand; December 11-12 in Singapore; and December 15-16 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. If you'd like to meet with me while I am in the area, please contact me at: +1.612.375.0323. To learn more about the conference, check out Marcus Evans online at: http://www.marcusevans.com/offices/Kualaframe/Kualaset.htm
The Partnering Intelligence Fieldbook: Tools and Techniques for Building Strong Alliances for Your Business, which I wrote with Sandra Naiman, is now available. Featuring more than 100 assessments, surveys, checklists, and partnering techniques, this is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to improve his or her partnering skills.
Check our Web site for details:
http://www.partneringintelligence.com/about_our_book.cfm
Do you need a keynote speaker to talk about alliances and partnerships? For the past three years, I've been giving exciting and informational talks at conferences and meetings around the world on creating great partnerships and alliances.
To learn more about my topics, or to arrange for me to speak at one of your events, contact us at:
+1.612.375.0323 - Worldwide
+1.888.292.0323 - Toll Free USA
+1.612.317.0713 - Worldwide Fax
info@partneringintelligence.com
Partnering Intelligence Newsletter is published monthly for clients and friends of Partnership Continuum, Inc. Copyright © 2003 by Partnership Continuum, Inc. All rights reserved.
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