Assess & Improve business relationships

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It's all about the people and relationships

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Businesses are groups of people in relationships with other groups, including customers, directors, executives, owners, family, stakeholders, shareholders, employees, business partners, supply chain, competitors, regulators, government, media and the public. Successful business relationships are grounded in trust, respect, reciprocity, loyalty, communication and good will. The parties need to be clear about what each need and expects from the other and have good contracts, systems and processes to make it work.

The single biggest factor in the success or failure of a joint venture, merger or acquisition is relationships. You can be the cleverest Hedge Fund founders in the world, but if you don't get on with each other the business will fail. A succession crisis can wipe millions off the company value. Poor business relationships result in personality clashes, loss of goodwill, resistance to change, sabotage, reputational damage, malicious behaviour, loss of partnerships and family conflict.

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Relationship Assessment & Strategy Service

We offer a service to assess and improve business relationships:
- Analysis of the relationship between the parties
- Facilitation of dialogue between key players at the interface of the relationship
- Conflict management, mediation & negotiation
- Recommendations to improve the relationship
- A strategy to improve the relationship, increase cooperation, positively influence behaviour and reduce the risk of conflict
- Understand the mindset of the other party and players so as to predict their behaviour, responses, understand why they are doing what they're doing.
- Identify mutual supra-ordinate goals, vision & interests to promote cooperation
- Training, workshops and coaching to improve relationship management

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Benefits

- Focus energy, attention, motivation, resources on the business
- Get personal & family dynamics out of the way of the business
- Increase performance, sales, productivity, ROI, reputation, investment
- Increase changes of a successful deal, merger, acquisition or change management
- Assess potential business partners & investments
- Increased goodwill, trust, respect, communication, reciprocity, support
- Avoid conflict and litigation
- Increase efficiency, productivity and creativity
- Increase trust, support, goodwill, cooperation, respect, understanding
- Build alliances
- Anticipate the other party's behaviour
- Increase power, authority, influence and confidence
- Improve communication, engagement,
- Assess the values, interests, capabilities, options, mindset, intentions, expectations and strategies of other players
- Establish Authentic Relationship Measures to hold one another accountable
- Manage accountability, transparency and performance in complex relationships
- Turn around difficult relationships
- Manage difficult behaviour
- Identify and manage resistance to change and sabotage
- Decide what to do about a difficult relationship

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The Process

We run this in 5 phases:
1. Preparation phase
- Hear each party's understanding of the relationship
- Identify the top priorities for improvement and results
- Generate hypotheses to test and priority areas to examine
- Identify specific people to interview and things to observe
- Identify materials and research which may aid our analysis
- Design the feedback and coaching process to be as useful as possible

2. Methods
- Deep, semi-structured interviews of those at the interface of the relationship
- Observation of work in progress- meetings, documents, process etc.
- Values, goals & interests assessment
- Facilitated group discussion- information gathering, analysis, brainstorming
- Facilitated dialogue between individuals and groups
- Role play and empathy exercises
- Coaching and feedback (confidential)
- Strategy formulation

3. Analysis
- What is the state of the relationship?
- What are the hot issues from each side?
- Interpersonal and inter-organisational relationships
- Structures, rules, contracts, processes
- Barriers to improvement
- Strengths and weaknesses
- Benefits and costs
- Opportunities & Threats
- Identity & purpose
- Emotions
- Behaviour
- Mindset, beliefs, assumptions, logic, explanations, thinking, narratives
- Mutual understanding, perceptions, attitudes, empathy, respect, trust, integrity, attractiveness, legitimacy, credibility
- Interests, strategy, motivations, goals, needs, intentions, desires
- Value systems, world-views
- Influence, authority, power, allies, networks
- Cooperation and conflict
- Organisational coherence, power structure, decision making & group dynamics
- Dialogue, disclosure, communication
- Psychodynamics (e.g. attachment, defence mechanisms)
- Inter-group dynamics (e.g. idealisation, passive aggression, groupthink)
- Victim-perpetrator-rescuer vs. Empowerment
- Attachment, attraction, commitment, support & loyalty
- Reciprocity, fairness, reliability, goodwill
- Games & manipulation
- Emotional wounds, resentments, violations

4. Relationship strategy formulation
- Areas for potential mutual cooperation, aligned interests, supra-ordinate goals
- Actions for each party to improve the relationship
- Options for influencing behaviour
- Improving trust, understanding, respect
- Communication for different value systems
- Strategic Communications
- New agreements, contracts, structures, rules and process
- Managing emotions
- Managing conflicts and disagreements

5. Potential Interventions
- Joint facilitated workshops
- Mediation
- Behavioural contracts
- Expectation management
- Relationship skills training

Reports and Presentations
- A verbal brief and presentation;
- A written report, if requested.

Feedback, facilitation and coaching
- A key part of the project is for us to spend time with key players individually and in small groups to work through the findings of our analysis. This would aim to:
- Clearly communicate the findings of the analysis and strategy
- Share knowledge and skills to enable them to practically apply the findings and operationalise the results specific to their role
- Ongoing support as necessary

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The Cost

This service is tailored to the client's needs. The investment required depends upon the size and complexity of the relationship, the number and locations, and how well the client staffs the project internally.

For example:
- Improving the working relationship between 2 founding Hedge Fund partners took one day of their time and 4 consulting days.
- A succession crisis intervention with a UK plc took 3 consulting days. A project for the assessment of an intergovernmental relationship including diplomats, government, military, business and civil society required 50 interviews and 5 days of the commissioning client's time, admin staffed by the client and 80 consulting days.
- ROI- The cost of the project is likely to be a tiny percentage of the net benefit in increased profits and reduced mistakes especially when annualised for the foreseeable future

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Book it

Get in touch for a conversation to see how this might benefit your business.

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Adan's executive coaches have decades of experience working at the executive level with leading organizations around the world. We have expertise in leadership, productivity, organizational change, team building, marketing, sales and motivation.

Our on-the-job experience coupled with extensive knowledge of the markets and functional areas enables us to deliver a variety of practical, high-impact presentations that engage, enlighten and entertain.