Management
Issue No. 3 - December/ 2001/january
The New Collaborative Competitor
by Hugh Forde
The global approach to business is fast trending towards firms collaborating to compete.
As a consequence, personal power derived from position within a firm's traditional competitive approach to business is gradually being superseded by relational power.
Relational power derives from the meeting of two or more minds from different firms or orgnisations. It is the intangible outcome of dialoguing self interest, agreeing a common purpose and reaching a common understanding on how to bring a task to completion not only with the customer in mind, but also engaging the customer in the interaction.
In the exercise of relational power interaction is replacing transaction in arriving at agreement on a mutual exchange of value.
The idea of win/win is also becoming a casualty of relational power. Win/Win involves compromise where the ‘winners’ each surrender something in order to win. Relational power also involves surrender, but relational surrender proactively builds a relationship out of which mutual trust and continuing goodwill evolve. The customer is the focus and is actively engaged in arriving at a mutually satisfying solution.
The pervasive concept of the ‘deal’ developed over the past 50 years epitomises the inadequacy of win/win. The ultimate example of the ‘deal’ approach to business is the legal profession's practice of ‘plea bargaining.’
Plea bargaining relegates the customer (the victim of crime) to third party status. The customer receives less than full justice for the sake of satisfying the need of the two combatants, the accused and the prosecutor, to 'cut a deal’. The customer's demand for justice is sacrificed to bring an action to early completion.
In today’s world the customer is no longer a third party to be ‘dealt with’. Today’s customer demands to be ‘engaged’. Customers want a product or service that not only satisf...
