Building a partnership always takes longer than people anticipate. Therefore, you need to plan time for relationship development. Conduct team-building exercises focused on the task–relationship dynamics. Make planning the task a part of the team-building activity. You’ll be amazed at how well this technique works.

Make sure key leadership is present to kick off the initial activity. When key leadership is visible, the partnering activities are generally more successful. Key leadership being absent sends the nonverbal message “This is not important.” Plan a launch. Invite people in the organizations to witness the kickoff. Write articles in the employee newsletters and provide media releases. Send the message “This is important! You are partnering with another business and you can look for these benefits.”

Make sure everyone knows the partnership’s vision and goals and inform them when these change or are updated. Keep this information in the forefront of people’s minds. One sure way to kill a partnership is to be ambiguous about or miscommunicate the vision and goals for the partnership.