Whether striking a new business partnership or building a coalition government, you can benefit from these tricks of the trade. Two veteran negotiators share their strategies for forging and maintaining successful long-term relationships.
The tribal leaders of Afghanistan's new coalition government face some difficult challenges in the weeks and months ahead. Formerly feuding factions will likely encounter distrust, miscommunication, and crossed signals as they work toward a common cause. Chances are, one partner will eventually say something to arouse the ire of another. And, as negotiations muddle along, it's a sure bet some rogue staffer will engage in an inflammatory act that threatens to derail the whole enterprise.
In short, Afghanistan's new leadership ensemble will look a lot like the corporate boardroom when Microsoft sits down with Intel, or when Firestone teams up with Ford.
Danny Ertel and Stuart Kliman have seen it all before. They are both founding partners of Vantage Partners LLC, a Boston-based consulting group that specializes in relationship management -- specifically, the care and feeding of high-stakes strategic alliances. These relationships -- the ones an enterprise has with its two or three most important partners -- are increasingly vital, they say, as companies decide to forge alliances, rather than engage in costly mergers or acquisitions.
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