It was a pleasure to be in the audience while the fascinating Jo Wright hosted a session on Successful Partnership Working - How to set up internal or external partnerships for success. We’ve all worked on projects in one form or another, sometimes multiple projects at the same time with different stakeholders. How can we ensure they don’t fail to deliver on time, on budget, and with satisfactory results like a whopping 71% of all projects?
The key to success is to build collaborative relationships within the project team by identifying each and every key partner involved in the process and stepping into their shoes. Or as Jo referred to it in an exercise – stepping into their land.
Jo has very kindly sent the workshop material (attached) so that we could take part in the workshop without the worry of taking notes and what a refreshing, eye opening session it was. When you invest time in collaboration and shift into someone else’s ‘land’ and ask yourself the ‘partnership’ questions you open your mind to understanding things from a different perspective. Of course, the more you build your expertise to understand your partners the better your relationship quality becomes.
This workshop was so valuable from the WIBF Birmingham perspective, there were loads of great feedback points discussed and these discussions helped us get to know our members better (and vice versa) so we were definitely putting theory in to practice immediately!
Jo Wright is an experienced facilitator and team coach, and a former sales and marketing professional from the world of FMCG. She works with businesses, charities and individuals to facilitate the important conversations and Bring Humanity to Work.
Words by Nix Bhachu
Personal Excellence Programme