Without doubt, today’s business environment puts different demands on your alliance skills than ever before. As an example, the sudden change in the world due to Covid-19 has resulted in many companies putting their investments on hold. There are obviously implications involved, and you may well find that you need to build and manage your alliances in a different way. Add to that, a rising demand for more complicated “ecosystem” types of collaborations, and you face even more challenges! At least one thing is for certain – change is constant, but in today’s climate, it’s faster than ever before. Your alliance skills need to be in good shape to cope with the storm.

So, how do you improve your alliance skills and deal with those challenges? Here are my tried and tested ways to dramatically improve your alliance skills:

Don’t Go it Alone

In my previous column, I asked you who your alliance sparring partner was. I believe that now, more than ever before, that no-one has the skillset and wisdom just to simply go it alone. The fact is, you don’t know what you don’t know – there’s always room for improvement. So, what I suggest is that you find an alliance sparring partner, or alternatively, hire an alliance coach. Coaching is a collaboration of sorts too. If you choose me, for example, as a sparring partner and coach I would question, test and nudge you to help you to find answers and solutions to your challenges. Those solutions can then be directly applied into your work: instant return on investment!

Follow Practical Alliance Education.

There is a multitude of alliance education available. However, in a fast-moving world, where time is scarce and budgets tight, you just don’t have time to spend a week at a business school. You need a practical class, like our Alliance Masterclass, where the focus is on bridging theory and practice in such a way that you can immediately apply the learnings to your situation, again instant return on investment.

Read

I definitely encourage you to keep on reading for inspiration – that sparks new ideas. Check the Alliance Reading List for a list of inspiring alliance literature. If you can only manage to read just one book from the list, then I recommend you read Ben Gomes-Casseres’ Remix Strategy *, it will inspire you to remix your alliance strategies to help find solutions that thrive in these turbulent times.

As always, I’d like to hear about what you’re going to do to improve your alliance skills?