Learn how to:

• Apply diagnostic tools to identify high-leverage cross-border linkages: shared know-how and resources; coordinated strategy; vertical or horizontal goals; new business creation
• Design and implement a partnering protocol for facilitating effective linkages between two or more units
• Apply a step-by-step road map to structuring and developing effective partnerships, internally or externally
• Identify and implement trust-building, and trust re-building, activities
• Establish and leverage Partnering Champions

a) Building the Framework

Prepare yourself: a lot of ground will be covered over the three days of this program. Identifying potential partners and cultivating and sustaining strong organizational relationships require you to have a keen understanding of your own interests and a soft touch to build trust and manage conflict.

The program focuses on four key areas of partnership development:

• Strategic relationships: internal, external, organizational, personal
• Relationship partnering: alignment, opportunities and challenges, issue resolution, renewal
• Trust: procedural and personal trust, empathy, intention, attribution
• Managing conflict: relationship cultures, common versus satisfied interests, Circle of Conflict

b) Which Relationship is Worth Developing?

Develop a nuanced understanding of internal versus external and organizational versus personal relationships. Your session leaders will show how to qualify strategic relationships that are worth focusing on.

In your qualifying analysis, consider the importance of:

• Expanded resources: size, scale, or scope
• Speed and flexibility: new ventures or markets
• Complexity: specialized resources, technology, or expertise
• Enlarged footprint: geographic markets, product lines, local customization

c) Trust Building and Trust Busting

Trust—both personal and procedural—is at the very foundation of all productive relationships. With your group, explore the keys to building trust. Learn the distinction between personal and procedural trust. With the help of a compelling case study, develop a deeper understanding of "attribution theory," which is an understanding of the ways people explain and interpret events.

From this module, you will come away with:

• An understanding of the Trust Model
• Confidence building measures you can apply to your own situation

d) Working the Model

A central element of the Relationship Partnering Model is the alignment of interests. Using a case study, learn how to apply this concept in various settings, such as joint ventures, the supply chain, and within your own department.

You will also understand how to:

• Identify challenges and opportunities in a possible partnership
• Use the Circle of Conflict to diagnose challenges and anticipate potential roadblocks

e) Defusing Time Bombs

Despite good intentions and great pre- planning, issues inevitably arise that can derail a partnership. In this module, you will acquire the skills to resolve such issues. Working with fellow learners on a case study, you will identify boundaries and design an issue resolution process.

Learn about:

• The care and feeding of relationships
• Preventive maintenance and ground rules to manage conflict
• A renewal process to breathe fresh life into moribund relationships.

Interactive learning

Put your learnings into action in a simulation that will force you to develop partnering protocols and work through competing interests.

Takeaways

• Relationship Partnering Model
• Dynamics of Trust Model
• The Triangle of Satisfaction
• Partnership Development Workbook

Organizational benefits

• Identification and creation of new value and opportunities
• Resolution of significant organizational issues with key stakeholders
• Groups brought together around major challenges
• Creation of new networks of disparate groups

This program is designed for people management practitioners, team leaders, and consultants who are involved in creating and sustaining internal or external partnerships and networks.

Job titles and organizations of some recent attendees:

• Job titles and organizations of some recent attendees:
• Director, Training & Organizational Development, Providence Continuing Care
• Team Lead, Outreach & Partners, Archives of Ontario
• Director, Corporate Policy Branch, Ministry of Government and Consumer Services
• V.P. Marketing, Communications & Human Resources, Workers' Compensation Board of Nova Scotia
• Regional Business Officer, Ontario Business Service Centre
• Commissioner, Human Resources, Region of Durham
• Director, Canada Revenue Agency
• Director, IH & OHS, WESA - Water and Earth Science Associates Ltd.
• Manager, Human Resources, CUETS Financial LTD
• Senior Manager, Learning, The Cadillac Fairview Corporation
• Manager, Partnerships and Outreach, Human Resources and Social Development Canada
• Director, Employee Relations, Ottawa Civic
• Director, Growth and Initiatives Department, City of Kingston
• Manager, OHS & Corporate Training, City of London

Gary Furlong

Gary Furlong has extensive experience in mediation, mediation training, alternative dispute resolution, organizational facilitation, negotiation, and conflict resolution. Gary is past president of the ADR Institute of Ontario, is a Chartered Mediator (C. Med.) and holds his Master of Laws (ADR) from Osgoode Hall Law School. Gary is the author of The Conflict Resolution Toolbox, (John Wiley and Sons, 2005), and the co-author of The Construction Dispute Resolution Handbook, (Butterworths, 2004). Gary was awarded the McGowan Award of Excellence in ADR in 2005.

As a mediator, Gary has worked in the areas of commercial, personal injury, estates, construction, shareholder, insurance, wrongful dismissal, real estate, and workplace conflicts, and specializes in intervening in difficult organizational and workplace disputes. Gary was regularly called in to the court-annexed ADR Centre in Toronto for the first three years, and is now appointed a roster mediator, Ontario Mandatory Mediation Program, Toronto. Gary has mediated personal injury, insurance and long-term disability claims ranging from $30,000 to over $1 million dollars. Estates files include multi-party claims ranging in size from $200,000 to well over a million dollars. Contract and tort claim files have ranged from $10,000 to $2 million dollars. Gary was a regular mediator and fact-finder with the Education Relations Commission, and was also appointed a provincial facilitator and mediator with the Education Improvement Commission, assisting with the financial reorganization and amalgamation of school boards in Ontario. Gary has also been on the Law Society of Upper Canada's complaint mediation panel, and the Teachers College of Ontario mediation panel. Gary has conducted fact-finding and investigations for the past 6 years. more...

Jim Harrison

Jim Harrison is an international consultant focused on relationship management, senior level strategy, and business development skills for large organizations.

He has a background in financial services and professional writing, and has more than 18 years experience in consulting, training, and development. He teaches in North America, Europe, the U.K., Australia, and Asia, and has facilitated training programs for Manulife, Clarica, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Bank of Nova Scotia. He designed and delivered a sales and negotiating program for Group Insurance Representatives that supported significant increases in business for a major group life insurance supplier.

In recent years, Jim has focused predominantly on helping senior sales executives understand, plan for, and build trusted advisor relationships with senior business executives. There are specific requirements of building relationships in the "C-Suite" and Jim has chosen to refine his knowledge in helping others to succeed in this realm. more...

Kingston: Four Points (Nov 27-29, 2012)

Queen's University IRC is proud to hold this session at Four Points by Sheraton Hotel, located at 285 King Street East, in historic downtown Kingston. Hotel rooms are available to participants at a special rate until one month prior to the program. Following your registration for the program, we will provide you with an unique link for hotel reservations. For more information on the hotel visit http://www.fourpointskingston.com/.