Question #6 – How are we performing?

Q6

How are we performing?

Keeping on track

Given the time that these partnering processes can take, the changing faces at the table and external pressures and changes, keeping on track toward the ultimate purpose can be a massive challenge.

When bringing in new people, reinforcing the purpose for the partnership is paramount.

If this doesn’t happen and new people enter with different ideas of where the partnership should be heading, there is a danger of ‘purpose drift’, where the initiative heads in a different direction to that originally proposed.

This may not be a problem if all partners agree with the new direction. If they don’t it can cause major tensions between partners and impact on the outcomes.

So how can you manage the partnering process given all the potential changes along the journey and ensure that your partnership stays on track?

Evaluation and review

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

George Santayana, The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense, 1905

Learning from both success and failure is essential if we want to change anything in the world. As Steven Covey says in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, "We need to take time to sharpen the saw."

Reflection and purposeful evaluation, while theoretically recognised as important, is unfortunately too often overlooked in every sector, from business to education and government.

In a partnering context reflection and evaluation is even more important as it becomes a tool for developing a shared understanding about how to work together moving forward based on what has already happened.

Any exercise in evaluation requires a willingness to explore honestly and to acknowledge both the actions and the lack of actions that have contributed to levels of success and failure.

Evaluate & Review

There are two elements that need to be examined:

Evaluation - looks at the impact of the partnership. > What is the value-add of working together as opposed to pursuing the goal individually?

> Is the purpose for which the partners set out on this partnering journey being achieved?

Review - examines the effectiveness of the partners’ collaboration. > Reviews of how the partners are working together are of most value if they are included as regular checkpoints in the schedule of milestones. Even if there is little evidence of conflict, it’s always a good idea to make time to ask questions and undertake a ‘health check’ of the partnering relationship.

Conducting a health check – a case study

OZ Minerals and the Kokatha Aboriginal Community (KAC)

Overview

OZ Minerals and the Kokatha Aboriginal Community (KAC) signed a partnering agreement in 2016 followed by a Native Title Mining Agreement (NTMA) in 2017. Conducting partnering health checks on their partnership has been a regular activity since the agreements were first signed.

Partnering for Shared Value Part of these agreements required the establishment of a Partnering Management Committee to oversee the partnering process between the two partners.

Objective

In this case the partners were very clear that the objective of the Partnering Agreement was not just to make a deal; it was about setting things up for each party to work together on a shared vision, allowing each party to realise its own goal for the long-term future.

As part of the agreement-making processes, KAC and OZ Minerals set about determining how the relationship would work in practice: > What would be needed by way of resourcing? > How might shared value be achieved?

And most importantly: > What would each party bring to the relationship? > How could the relationship be managed into the future? > How could it be sustainable with many changes in personnel over time?

Outcome

The outcomes of these discussions became embedded in the Native Title Mining Agreement (NTMA) and have set the foundation for how the organisations will work together, as well as expedited underground development work. A key element of trust building in the relationship was the establishment of the Partnering Management Committee (PMC) to oversee the implementation and operationalisation of the agreements and monitor progress against key milestones. The PMC meets every quarter to make decisions and is a conduit for broader communication and helps to seek out mutual and shared value opportunities and resolve any differences between the two parties. While the PMC undertakes quarterly reviews, this is mainly around operational performance. In 2018, it was agreed that there was a need to have a more thorough ‘health check’ involving leaders of both organisations on just how the relationship was working.

In October 2018, 12 months after the signing of the NTMA, OZ Minerals and KAC executive teams met to review progress against elements of the agreements. This ‘health check’ workshop was held on site at Carrapateena, in northern South Australia, involving the same KAC and OZ Minerals leaders who had been involved in developing the agreements and it was independently facilitated. Importantly, the workshop also included new people to both organisations who would be responsible for implementing specific actions related to the agreements.

Conclusion

The workshop enabled both parties to take a step back and to assess how the relationship was working in practice and whether they were doing what they said they would in the Partnering Agreement. It was highly successful in bringing everyone back together to revisit alignment of values and knowledge, show what was working, and where there were opportunities for improvement.

This is a great example of how review workshops can be utilised as a ‘health check’ on a partnering process and enable revisiting of the early agreements between partners.