How to have a successful union
Dawn Stallwood, Managing Director and Chief Integrity Officer, Floodlight Business.com
THE CICES presidential theme for 2023/2024 ‘adding value through collaboration’ is right up my street. The institution’s commercial management conference in London earlier this year focused on collaborative dispute resolution and was a day rich in content.
I was asked to participate with the Institute for Collaborative Working (ICW). My contribution took the angle that professional collaboration can prevent disputes from arising, or if disputes do arise, it can provide a means to work through them before escalation to any mediation or arbitration process. In other words, collaboration as alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
I shared the presentation with Adrian Miller, membership services director for ICW. Adrian showcased how the institute leads the way in providing resources, access to leading-edge collaborative practices, training and a community of executive network members and like-minded collaboration professionals, like me.
This article is light-hearted (but you should get the more serious messaging too). My views are drawn from my professional experience, combining a background as a corporate commercial lawyer and notary public, now serving business as a facilitator, business integrity champion and collaborative conscience.
My work over the past quarter century has been into mergers and acquisitions, deal integration, boardroom health, consortia and industry groups supporting public sector work, as well as supporting clients with structured collaboration including the ISO 44001 framework (more of which later). We stand on the shoulders of giants; so in writing this piece, my gratitude and recognition goes to all these clients and their teams. In this article, we learn from them.
Can we prevent or diffuse disputes through collaborative practices? I think we can, if we commit to what that means and go beyond the notion of it.Relationships can be tough work. They certainly require time and investment, commitment, communication and compassion, along with a vision, complimenting competencies, persistent learning, innovation and resilience. Before you ask, I was not just referring to personal relationships; the same is true of business relationships, if they are to survive and thrive.
But can we prevent or diffuse disputes through collaborative practices? I think we can, if we commit to what that means and go beyond the notion of it. This means we actually implement it in the contract, supporting processes, the ecosystem the relationship operates in, into team behaviours and by executive sponsorship. So, it is going to take some effort. None of us or our organisations show up collaborative without some design work. When I look at effective collaboration, I view it as a series of stages.
In part this has been informed by the structured lifecycle process ISO 44001 collaborative business relationship management system standard and accompanying guidance. This is my take on it and I share this to provoke conversation within your teams, projects and programmes.
Figure1: Six elements to help prevent disputes through collaboration.
In figure 1, you will see the six elements I suggest help prevent disputes through collaboration and just for context (and perhaps to help frame conversations), also how this could align with personal relationships too. I write with the benefit of a divorce, lots of learning and a second opportunity with my now husband Kevin. I hope this helps you have engaged discussions with your collaboration partners, project colleagues or amongst your own team. Remember also that the ICW resources are excellent. I personally recommend individual or ‘executive network member’ participation. I would not be without it.
1. B.C (Before collaborating)/ build my profile
Before exploring a collaborative opportunity, the organisation’s leadership and project/programme team must assess whether the organisation is ready to collaborate.
Before exploring a collaborative opportunity, the organisation’s leadership and project/ programme team must assess whether the organisation is ready to collaborate. I suggest that before choosing a partner (swipe left or right, I have no idea), knowing what shape you are, what you stand for and how you will show up as a partner and contributor is sensible. You would do the same if online dating was something you were embarking on. Why not for business partnering too?
Here are some important questions you could ask of yourself, your team and your executive sponsor:
- Are we truly good at collaboration? Honesty is crucial here.
- Do the team have collaborative behaviours, experience and aptitude?
- Do we understand our own objectives for collaborating? What does success look like?
- As an organisation or team, do we incentivise collaboration or competition?
- Have we incorporated and learned from previous feedback with other industry partnerships?
- What can we offer a partner in terms of behaviours, skills, qualifications, and track record?
2. Select/dating
So, now that you have your profile captured and understood and perhaps have done some remedial or improvement work to get ready, it’s time to date. Or, more formally, time to select a collaboration partner.
Sometimes, partner selection is difficult and may well feel forced by the tender or qualification process for a major infrastructure programme. This is unfortunate, but nonetheless, rigour is called for. Get the selection wrong and the ramifications are significant. I have seen ill-fitting business relationships stumble over the years, and a lot of times, they are quite avoidable through these upfront stages. Slowing down is often the right response. Preparation early on enables this. When selecting partners for collaboration, situational awareness is key.
I offer you the following questions as you step into this activity:
• What is the context for collaborating – does the programme or project have any collaborative expectations or indeed constraints? Are the client requirements clear, or is there an overlap which could make the commercial realities or risk-sharing hard? Can I encourage you not to simply hope for the best, and ignore these red flags and plough ahead – communication and transparency is essential.
• Through the lens of the objectives that you identified in the B.C stage, consider:
- What do we need that we don’t have within our existing delivery, resources, skillset, experience or reputation?
- What could our partner(s) want or need from us?
- Where are our red lines – what don’t we want from a collaboration?
• How would we collaborate – what structure (SVP, alliance, consortia, prime/sub-contractor) would work best and why?
• Do we know what our ideal partner type is and where to find them?
3. Discover/engagement
Use this time wisely and don’t let the legal or procurement process impact making time for feedback loops and pragmatic dialogue unrealisable.So you have your collaborative profile (and taken your medicine to cure any ills from other partnerships) and you have gone through a process of discernment with mutual transparency to select your partner. This is the period of engagement. Think of it as mobilisation for collaboration.
At this point, you are not fully committed in terms of a covenant contracting relationship, but that’s the near-term goal. This period remains an opportunity to be sure (as best you can) of your selection and fit. Use this time wisely and don’t let the legal or procurement process impact making time for feedback loops and pragmatic dialogue unrealisable.
Here are a few suggestions which are front of mind for me during this stage:
- Be sure to understand (and if you can, validate) their collaborative experience, both good and bad.
- Would they sign up to a relationship management charter, prior to contract, to show their commitment to collaborative behaviours and processes? I prefer not to wait until contract to realise any level of discomfort on their part. Some elements of collaboration, shared governance and the level of transparency and information sharing may be difficult.
- As you prepare to step up into delivery mode, you will have done a lot of work in the delivery elements of your programme, so you will have identified potential problem areas or activities that carry higher execution risk. Consider stress-testing or running facilitated scenarios to identify potential problems and interference upfront, and most importantly, if you can resolve to solve them.
- Agree on and seek out the benefits of collaboration, beyond programme or project deliverables. ISO 44001 looks to benefit management and value creation in this way.
- Invest time and dialogue to build shared objectives and ensure alignment. Do not assume.
- Take time to understand each other’s governance and reporting structures, processes, and protocols, which may overlap, complement, or frustrate your collaborative intentions. Change may be required inside the organisation to support the relationship, or room may need to be created to develop specific processes and performance management.
- Provoke an early disagreement to address issues like workshare, risk sharing and client communications.
- Determine the working together commitment beyond the day-today team, including the executive sponsors.
4. Commit/wedding
Determine the working together commitment beyond the dayto-day team, including the executive sponsors.
Congratulations, you got to this point. As with the wedding ceremony, the collaborative contract seals the parties willingness to formalise their active commitment to ways of working, including:
- Shared commitment to the mission/ purpose.
- Serving each-other, meaning you look out for your partner (anything else, is really just co-operation), as well as your own interests.
- Exercising humility and forgiveness and a desire to resolve conflicts quickly, well and with learning.
- Communication as a cornerstone principle (both listening and speaking).
- A desire to grow and do better as a unified group.
- Awareness and support of wider stakeholders and how your collaboration impacts them.
The NEC4 suite of contracts (including the alliance contract and engineering and construction contract for the built environment) are more collaborative than others I have seen, but they still stop short of being a relationship management plan.
The NEC4 suite of contracts are more collaborative than others I have seen, but they still stop short of being a relationship management plan. Please resist accepting the status quo of contract language (this is our usual template etc), whether between the partners or, indeed, the customer contract your collaboration will be measured against.
I find it is not uncommon for the partners to have a reasonably collaborative contract (or at least principles), but the overarching delivery contract may force uncollaborative behaviours or confuse the situation. If you know the overarching framework adds more risk to the collaboration than is wise, it is important to raise the concern (with pragmatic solutions).
UK government has a general theme of collaboration for its programmes as well as a commitment to engage SMEs. Some of your organisations carry influence and weight in the sector and policymakers for large programmes. CICES itself, as well as ICW are also resources for influence.
In your contract, please:
- Anticipate challenges and be intentional.
- Be involved in the drafting – it is not fair to just leave this to the lawyers or procurement team, who may have been a bit more remote in the previous stages we have discussed.
- Dispute resolution is more than just boilerplate clauses pointing towards mediation or arbitration processes.
- Make sure you contract the shared objectives, collaborative behaviours, and governance – putting this into an Annex if that makes it easier.
- Develop a relationship management plan or charter informed by ISO44001.
- Provide facilitation and coaching for your team (as in your collaboration team) on what this collaboration contract means in practice. It is a delivery tool.
What I am suggesting here, is really giving thought into the contract or the relationship management plan which can be a part of your overall contract, to the NEC4 intention that ‘the parties are required to act in a spirit of mutual trust and co-operation, and give early warnings of anything that could affect time, cost or quality so it can be mitigated without delay.
5. Journey/union
Some collaborations last for many years (decades even), so sustained energy and repeated communication of the mission/ shared objectives is vital.So, now the hard but rewarding work begins. Some collaborations last for many years (decades even), so sustained energy and repeated communication of the mission/shared objectives is vital.
The journey towards successful collaboration requires:
- Focusing on resilience in collaboration and delivery.
- Prioritising collaborative behaviours, especially during conflicts.
- Pre-empting issues and points of contract heat. Workshops are helpful here.
- Employing emotional intelligence.
- Reviewing collaborative competency across the team, and take steps to manage issues.
- Active governance, sponsorship and support from the executive committee.
- Course correction through continuous feedback.
- Actively updating the contract and charter/relationship management plan to keep them live and useful.
The ISO 44001 standard lays the groundwork for structured collaboration, and has a specific section on staying together. It is not something left to chance. Indeed if you achieve the ISO44001 accreditation, you will be audited annually on showing how your system and the joint relationship management plan support successful business as usual.
This is one of the reasons I like the standard, because it helps provide a mechanism to keep partners focused on collaboration and the benefits which result, not just on programme delivery.
The essential ingredient to collaboration, I think, is that issues and conflicts are considered opportunities for improvement. Seen in this light, problem solving is a priority. In theory, a successful relationship management plan will mean, even in conflict, the contract clauses on dispute resolution, are redundant. We should at least strive for this.
6. Disentangle/dissolve
Relationships may come to an end amicably (for example, the project is completed, or the partners agree a mutual parting of ways) or with some unresolved issue. In the ISO 44001 standard, before you even choose a partner to collaborate with, you are expected to have an approach to how you disentangle or exit the relationship, and document it.
Professional collaboration can really help reduce the risk of issues completely derailing relationships or damaging reputations.
When you find a partner, you are to collectively develop a joint exit management plan (ExMP), looking across all the various elements of the relationship or project and how exit could be managed collaboratively.
The contract element (i.e. termination, redress, liquidated damages) is just one of many elements. As with all other elements, this bit is also audited, annually. This means the ExMP never has the dust settle on it, and it is continually improved and made fit for purpose as the relationship matures.
When it comes to dissolving an issue or relationship, make informed choices:
- Decide whether you are dissolving an issue or relationship – I have seen issues escalate to full relationship failure.
- Ensure the dispute resolution process doesn’t escalate the conflict or force an unwanted direction.
- Commit to learning from the experience to avoid repeating mistakes. This extends to sharing information and knowledge with the stakeholder group for your programme or project; lessons learned are a continuous thread through ISO 44001.
- Recognise that the personalities and behaviours of those managing this phase matter, so supporting capacity building in this area and reviewing competencies is important. If a change is needed, then don’t ignore it.
- Maintain collaboration until the end and through exit. Why? Effective exit management builds credibility for future mobilisations and can only add positively to your project experience. Failure is not bad, failing to learn is.
- Understand that issue resolution builds valuable muscle memory.
My intent is that this article shows that professional collaboration can really help reduce the risk of issues completely derailing relationships or damaging reputations. At the very least, it supports those engaged in managing a dispute to be intentional in finding a way through. By giving attention and effort to each of the six elements at the appropriate time, we can navigate disputes more effectively and build stronger, more resilient partnerships.
ICW has a wealth of resources if you wish to know more, and becoming accredited to the ISO 44001 standard is a good place to start your behavioural change programme to foster effective collaboration. If you have any questions or would like further information (facilitation, negotiation, ISO4001 shape-up), please feel free to contact me. I have also included Adrian’s details so you can follow up on becoming involved with ICW (as an organisation or individual).
Dawn Stallwood, Managing Director and Chief Integrity Officer
Floodlight Business.com
dawn.stallwood@floodlightbusiness.com
Adrian Miller, Membership Services Director
Institute for Collaborative Working