Partnership, the job of the future

Director of Partnerships is, in my opinion, “the” job of the future.

Much more than fashionable professions such as “data scientist” voted “sexiest job of the 21st Century by the Harvard Business Review, partnerships, relationship professions par excellence, will become the place for strategy and development of all organizations, companies and associations. Seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), partnerships are an integral part of the strategy and are based on the skills of know-how to innovate, which I describe in my book “Know-Innovate, the innovation attitude to adapt to the world which changes” and of which I give you some keys in this article.

1) SDG 17 “Partnerships for the Global Goals”

In 2015 the United Nations defined seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as the eradication of poverty, the fight for sustainable consumption or against climate change. Last, but not least, is “partnerships for the Global Goals”. This last objective alone defines the mode of operation for achieving these objectives. It presupposes a partnership attitude which resides in the ability to work in a network with various interlocutors sharing the same vision and the same objective. In business we talk about an ecosystem which brings together the different stakeholders, employees, customers, service providers, industrial and territorial relays, NGOs, etc.

2) Partnerships, an integral part of the strategy

The choice of partners is resolutely strategic. In innovation, the definition of the ecosystem is key, and it is carried out from the first step of the process, the clarification of objectives. Having the aim of an exchange of know-how, financial and human resources, the choice of partners must be carefully carried out according to criteria of key skills but also of attitude: loyalty, acceptance of diversity. Relationship professions, partnerships require both the intuition of the heart which allows good feeling, but also strategic analysis.

3) An “all concerned” relationship profession

When a partnership is concluded, the Director of Partnerships must mobilize all the stakeholders to converge their actions towards the same goal. Sharing responsibility between everyone will promote the success of the project. For this it is necessary to show the abilities of a visionary leader but also of a project manager who pays as much attention to the good understanding of the actors on the project as to the achievement of the objective. These relational skills reside in interpersonal intelligence which will be the quality expected to manage partnerships

4) Soft skills of partnership skills

This intelligence of the relationship requires a series of soft skills inherent to know-how to innovate revealed by a study on “soft skills for innovation”. In addition to interpersonal intelligence which covers the ability to create, know how to maintain relationships and function collaboratively, a particular intelligence is essential, the Intelligence of paradoxes. It is about knowing how to combine both transparency and confidentiality, using empathy without going as far as compassion, practicing