Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.  ~Henry Ford

Change Thinking is a growing community of experienced internal and external change agents. We are confident in our skills, but at the same time feel a sense of responsibility to advance both our personal capabilities and the professional field of change facilitation.

We have explored the sponsor and agent roles individually, but I’d like to address how the two relate when functioning as a team. In particular, I want to explore the difference between relationships that are synergistic and productive and those that are less than effective.

As seasoned change practitioners, we wouldn’t have survived long enough to gain deep knowledge and skills if we didn’t have a capacity for establishing and maintaining strong relationships with clients (those we serve, whether inside or outside our own organization). However, many of us are frustrated that we don’t have more access to, respect from, and influence with the sponsors we work with.

There are many facets to a good working relationship with a sponsor. I’d like to examine two in this series—our rapport with the sponsor, and expectations about how we’ll work together.

Rapport

Our depth of rapport with another person can be measured by our level of mutual regard, ease of communications, amount of trust, number of shared concerns, etc. One way to characterize the rapport we have with sponsors is the degree to which we are seen as “partners” versus “vendors.” A vendor-type relationship exists when the sponsor and agent operate more or less autonomously and measure success in different ways. Partnerships between sponsors and change agents occur when they form mutually beneficial alliance based on common goals and interdependence.

Sponsors and the agents who function as partners with them in change endeavors display a distinct pattern of views about each other. Sponsors who see agents as vendors also display distinctive patterns.

A Sponsor Who Thinks of a Change Agent as a…

Change Agents Who Think of Themselves As…

Vendor-type relationships between sponsors and agents aren’t wrong, but they are limited in what they can accomplish. Partnerships create more value, but require added attention and effort to establish and sustain. Clearly, we should agree with our sponsors on what kind of working relationship is needed to succeed and match that against the relationship we have.

It’s frustrating to offer an observation or recommendation from a partnership context only to have the sponsor receive the input as if it is coming from a vendor. When this happens, we usually end up being less influential than our role calls for. The resulting breakdown in rapport makes the relationship a liability rather than an asset for achieving realization.

The distinctions between being a partner and a vendor are not binary in nature. Most working relationships aren’t characterized solely by one or the other. They each represent different ends of a continuum and we should move up or down the progression as circumstances dictate. Most of the time, our relationships with sponsors end up with some of both attributes, yet one side of the continuum is usually more predominate. The greater the Degree of Difficulty is for the initiatives we work on, the more important it is that we function and are perceived as partners rather than behaving and being viewed as vendors.

What do you think? Are there times you feel more like a vendor than a partner? What is the greatest barrier to developing a partner relationship with sponsors? How has your personal resilience helped or hindered you as you worked to develop a relationship with your sponsor?

Next: Why setting expectations with the sponsor is so important.

Go to the beginning of this series.