The Partnership Challenge Part 4: “Enable Others to Act”

We recently read The Leadership Challenge by James M Kouzes and Barry Z Posner at CoPort. We believe that if we’re not constantly learning, we’ll constantly find ourselves reacting rather than preparing, following rather than leading. And though there are times to follow, we’re pushing forward.

So we invite you to come along with us. What partnership teams need more than anything right now is not another playbook or tool, though we advocate for using the right tools for the right job. We advocate, more than anything, for growth and professional development. It’s been said that 15% of your job is the technical know-how, and the other 85% is all about people. We are in the people business first and foremost.

Yes, the contract matters, and the system makes a difference (or else we wouldn’t be in business). But when we put the technical and the system above the people, we’re missing the mark of living to our highest potential.

More than anything, we need leadership.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner’s 6th edition is a powerful collection of stories and time-tested truths. John Maxwell, arguably one of the world’s primary leadership experts says this, “The Leadership Challenge remains one of the five best books I have ever read. Thirty years after its first publication, I still continually recommend it to others looking to improve as leaders.”

With that being said, we’ll unpack the five practices of leadership and apply them to our work in partnerships. Because we know, that our companies win when our partnerships get better.

Let’s dive in:

Part 4: Enable Others to Act

The very core of partnerships means there’s others to work with. It should go without saying that partnerships doesn’t live in a vacuum. So in order for us to be successful as partner managers is to know how to enable others. This comes in many different flavors, but Kouzes and Posner lay out two focuses for enabling others to act: Foster Collaboration and Strengthen Others.

Part of the lifecycle journey of adding new partners includes enablement. If it’s a referral, agency, MSP, VAR, tech, solution partner, just about any kind of partner is going to need to be enabled to sell. This usually comes in the fashion of training or certifications. But we still have it backward. We tend to train people the way we like to be trained, but we don’t ask our partners, “What’s the best way for us to engage your team?” We need to collaborate.

That’s why a lot of our “programs” don’t work or are ineffective. We come with our plan and our strategy, but we fail to realize that no one else does business like we do. That’s why building a portal and saying, “Go here to learn about our solution.” Just doesn’t work. It requires we ask the partner what’s the best way to engage with their teams and inviting them into the process. When we foster collaboration through asking questions and being a student of our partner, then we instantly do something that is required for any partnership to succeed—trust. It builds trust. And in order for our partnership programs to be successful, we have to build trust. In order to build trust, ask your partner how they want to be enabled and then do what they suggest. It builds trust. And if it doesn’t work, that’s okay, because now they’ll trust you with an idea for next time.

Secondly, we must strengthen others. When partnerships are not working, it’s just too easy to point the blame at the partner. They’re not there anyways, right? Wrong. It breeds the culture of bad partnerships in your company. When we’re hiring a new account executive, if they don’t hit their quota the first quarter we don’t blame the new hire. We ask, “Were they equipped with everything they needed to succeed?” Do they have what they need? Did we provide them the training they need to succeed? It’s not the partner’s problem. It’s yours.

I remember working with a partner that was incredibly technical and we needed an SE on for every call. The problem was, they didn’t have enough SEs to support our sales team and the opportunities we brought them. You can imagine, we didn’t close very many deals. Why? Because we weren’t equipped with what we needed in order to be successful. When you’re launching a new partnership, before you release it to your sales team, ask the question, “Have we strengthened our team so they are competent to pitch the opportunity, guide the prospect through the sales cycle and close the deal?” If that answer is no, stop, collaborate with your partner and start again.

Don’t go to market if you haven’t enabled your partner.

Conclusion

This concludes are four part series with our adaptation of The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. We hope you gained a little more information not just in leadership but in partnerships. If you haven’t read the book with your team, we highly encourage you do and then begin to execute on the strategies one day at a time, one partner at a time.

Because we know, our companies win when our partnerships get better.