Mark Hamade

The value of business goodwill is making a come-back. The go-it-alone approach is no longer practical. Partnering opportunities created by the communications and distribution revolution are allowing companies to reach larger audiences and acquire value-creating resources. Nearly any business conference you attend this year is sure to feature passionate evangelists espousing the virtues of strategic alliances and economic goodwill.

Collaboration Makes Good Business Sense

This fast-growing business climate is focused on collaboration and reciprocation. To survive in today’s worldwide game your company must seek alliances based on compatible differences.

How do you get into the partnering game? Grow, shape and leverage your goodwill by doing the following:

• Grow your goodwill by instituting best practices.

• Prepare your company for future alliances by using your goodwill to shape a receptive mindset within your organization.

• Leverage your goodwill to team up with allies and the allies of your allies.

Are you involved in a constructive dialog with one or more potential partners? If not, what’s holding you back? The days of viewing your competitors with distant suspicion and enmity are over. Few enterprises can operate competitively working out of a cocoon. The first rule of this game is: “we work together, any chance we get, because working together is nearly always mutually advantageous.”

Concerned about resistance from inside your organization? Some stakeholders will support your partnering aims and others will not depending on how they may be affected. Unsupportive stakeholders can kill an alliance before it comes together or slowly eat away at it over time. It no longer makes sense to let internal differences slow you down.

Your goodwill can make a big difference in dealing with resistance and the prevention of sabotage. Look for silos in your organization. Appeal to those individuals using your goodwill. Be determined to navigate such situations toward a positive outcome. Use the power of your goodwill as a change management tool to win over as many of your stakeholders as possible.

Acquiring Goodwill

How does your business acquire goodwill? It cultivates it through best practices, such as:

• Good governance

• Customer service

• Efficiency

• Branding

• Pricing fairness

• Innovation

• Authenticity

• Consideration

• Cooperation

• Collaboration

• Thoughtfulness

• Decency

• Understanding

• Trust

• Community

Alliance-minded executives use their goodwill on a daily basis in communicating with stakeholders. Without the consistent expression of goodwill, they know, it is virtually impossible to sustain a partnering synergy that builds goodwill and benefits all stakeholders. The alternative course may in time result in stagnation and eventual decline.