Partnership Development Part Three: Conducting a Thoughtful and Collaborative Process

We’re excited to share the third issue of our mini adventure series about our approach to Partnership Development. In the first two issues, we explored forming a Joint Committee and working with them to define and achieve important project milestones. But those are just the first two of three process “pillars” our team at Michael Anderson Consulting uses to support partnership development. Today, we’ll describe the third pillar, which for us means focusing as much on people as on the process.

Conducting a Thoughtful and Collaborative Process

Imagine your well-traveled group of Joint Committee members have developed a compelling Vision for Partnership, a thorough Due Diligence Roadmap, and are working toward reaching agreements that will be captured in a Term Sheet or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), preparing each organization for a partnership decision…now what? 

Helping organizations come to a confident decision about partnership (including whether or not to do it and, if so, what it should look like) is an important outcome. But that’s only half our job. It’s crucial that organizations arrive at their collective decision well prepared for the potential changes that it represents, aware of how those changes might impact staff and those served by the organization. 

"Working with Michael Anderson Consulting was an extraordinary experience. Their leadership and focus guided us to make decisions that were essential to our merger. They knew when we could move quickly and when we needed to slow down and bring new perspectives and voices into the conversation. I can not say enough great things about this firm."

-Colleen Moriarty, Executive Director (former), Hunger Solutions Minnesota

Many partnerships require some degree of change in governance, programming, and/or operations. These changes are not merely structural or logistical—every one of them is relational. They involve people. That’s why our consulting team is there to help look one step ahead, think about and listen to those who will be most impacted by the changes to come, and be mindful of what needs to happen for the partnership to succeed.

While the Joint Committee typically involves staff with decision-making responsibilities for various functions or departments, engaging a broader swath of staff typically occurs through workgroups or all-staff sessions. This enables those closest to the work to contribute knowledge and perspectives on what will need to change and how, ground-truthing plans for implementation. It also includes staff as part of the change making, not subject to it. 

Throughout this journey together, we are simultaneously working through the partnership development process while helping the organizations prepare to navigate change.