Are Partnering Champions Born or Made?

Having a Partnering Champion for your project, program and organization is so very important. This is someone who has experienced Collaborative Partnering and knows that it works! As a result, they want others on their team to experience it too. Partnering Champions are essential to helping project teams and their organizations grow into a highly collaborative culture that produces exceptional results!

Clearly, Partnering Champions are not born. They are made. They continue to learn, with each project and each issue, how to create a more and more collaborative environment. But how do you “grow” Partnering Champions so that your projects are filled with them?

First, they must understand what Collaborative Partnering is working to achieve. Then, if you have a pilot program, they can begin to experience it first-hand. Of course, for your first endeavors, it will be very important to have a highly seasoned Partnering Facilitator who can help guide the team.

Second, with each issue that comes up on your project(s), there is the possibility to resolve it with what is fair and justifiable, given the circumstances. A commitment to resolution is an essential beginning. As your project team grows in their commitment to never have unresolved issues (or claims), the team will become more cohesive and begin to move better, faster, smarter.

Third, getting people trained in Collaborative Partnering can substantially shorten the learning curve. Learning on the job is great, but what if the job became a “Partnering Laboratory” where the Collaborative Partnering concepts could be applied to your project in real time? This is what I’ve been working on in my Partnering FIT™ (Field Intensive Training) program. It is an interactive virtual training with “micro” lessons that are applied directly to your project(s). Then you capture what you learned and can discuss it as an entire team.

We developed this kind of training for the California Department of Transportation and it made a huge difference in the acceptance and results of their project partnering. People don’t know what they don’t know. I am very excited that Partnering FIT™ will be available this Fall to every project team worldwide 24/7 on any platform you want to use.

Partnering Champions are essential. Let’s make thousands of them together!