There’s a rather pessimistic old saying that I’m sure you’ve heard: “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.” Hopefully things aren’t quite that bad in your environment, but it’s easy to understand the sentiment. To put it more poetically, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
At the risk of sounding negative, I’ve been thinking about the downside of productivity lately, the little errors and issues that come up. These little pitfalls are important, of course: If you don’t step off the sidewalk every now and then, how will you know you’re really on the path?
If it helps, I’ve been thinking about the negative in the context of a positive. If you can define the potential pitfalls of an initiative, you can plan for them, plan around them and plan through them. Even in training, where so many variables can impact an outcome, a little look at the dark side can help you capture the light.
The why is obvious: People learn from their mistakes, and experience is the best teacher.
I’m talking with you about this today for a reason. We’re now just about three months ahead of the 2012 Partnering for Performance conference produced by TrainingIndustry.com. One of the items on the agenda for the event is a panel discussion featuring learning leaders from companies like Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, Pearson and Genentech.
The panel, “The Pitfalls of Poor Partner Management,” takes place at the annual conference, happening May 1-3, 2012, at the Raleigh (NC) Convention Center. You should join us.
With the panel this year we’re taking a different tack to tell a story. Our speakers will focus on some pitfalls to avoid with training partnerships, as a way to highlight the best practices that make collaboration work.
I’m telling you this here and now for a reason. I’d love to have you contribute to that conversation by helping develop a list of potential pitfalls when managing training partnerships. Whether you’re working with a supplier, another division, a colleague or your training team, what can go wrong and how can you make it right?
I’ll start the ball rolling with this list of potential pitfalls:
- Scope creep. Poor working relationships can turn your simple little ice cream cone in a massive fudge-covered sundae. That’s great, unless you just needed a light snack.
- Because I said so. OK, we’ve all heard the antiquated fiction that the customer is always right. Being a good customer, just like being a good supplier, means being a good partner. Both sides should leave egos and attitudes off the table and just get to work.
- You want it when? There’s a great line in Carrie Fisher’s “Postcards from the Edge:” “Instant gratification takes too long.” That’s a funny line in context of that story, but in the business world, you have to remember to counter that urgency with a line from a classic commercial, “We will sell no wine before it’s time.” Maybe genius can be rushed a little, but don’t count on it.
Clearly that list is nowhere near complete, and that’s where you come in. I’d love to hear from you, what types of things went wrong in training partnerships, and how those pitfalls can be avoided. You don’t have to name names and we won’t share your name as we compile a general list of warning signs.
What do you think?
