December CCM Speaker: Alliance Managers Can Save Our Planet
The Collaborative Connection Monthly (CCM) webinar and roundtable series spans the business world far and wide. It has explored the role of alliances—and alliance managers—in IT, healthcare, govtech, pharma, and physical security, to name a few industries.
Last week, at a time when global leaders convened at the UN’s COP28 conference to discuss climate change, the program upped the ante. In the session “ESG and Your Partnering ROI,” alliance managers were tasked with an even greater challenge: improving sustainability. Leading the cavalry for the mission was Danielle James, IT sales and alliances leader and author of Collaboration Is Where IT’s At, who herself is equally proficient in managing horses and business collaborations—in between writing books and assembling partnerships to meet the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), James cares for a 10-year-old Australian stockhorse named Amici, with whom, as the gelding’s name might suggest, she has become simpatico.
“As our relationship has unfolded, the connection between natural horsemanship and alliances has sort of magically appeared,” said James, who then clarified the term “natural horsemanship,” which is generally the concept that rather than raising a horse by “dominating” it, “it’s a partnership.”
Some of the world’s most recognized bodies acknowledge the vital role alliances will play in solving our climate crisis and embedding a more humane approach to business into our governance models; the UN’s SDG 17 centers around “partnerships for the goals,” James noted, before agreeing with moderator Greg Burge, CSAP, principal of Collaborative Partnering Services, that there is a “link between [the UN’s sustainability] goals and the international standard for collaborative working” (i.e., ISO 44001).
The C-Suite Is Listening: To Employees, Investors, and the Community’s ESG Demands
Make no mistake, the UN’s goals are lofty, but we have no choice but to make progress—fast—as we race to save our planet—“not to put too fine a point on this,” said James.
“There’s a huge increased focus from organizations around this because society is demanding [it],” said James. “Investment in ESG is an organization’s way of saying, ‘Okay, we are hearing our key stakeholders—our shareholders, our investors, our employees, and the communities in which we operate—we are hearing and we acknowledge [them], and want to step up and address this.”
James urged alliance managers to be proactive in pursuing ESG goals, if for no other reason than because company senior leaders need help in this area, whether they are explicitly asking alliance managers for assistance or not.
“Your CEO is on the hook essentially to demonstrate year-on-year improvement across the ESG metrics, especially, for example, reducing CO2 and equivalent emissions,” said James. “The C-suite is facing increasing pressure from regulatory bodies to meet certain minimum requirements. The whole compliance aspect is driving action in this space, where it won’t be a choice anymore with our organizations to improve their ESG performance.”
Similarly, James asserted that alliance professionals should take it upon themselves to “help our clients to fast-track their path to net zero.”
A Box Seat to Changing the World
Why the alliance manager? Because few if any people have a skill set so suited for the role.
“I’d say that you are absolutely, as an alliance professional, in the box seat for playing a very large part in this,” James said. “We all know that alliance professionals naturally are change agents because we’re constantly beating down the barriers between silos. We’re bringing people together. We’re naturally wanting to connect people.”
James continued, “Alliances professionals are naturally suited to working with complexity and bringing the right people together to come up with these creative solutions.”
Alliance managers are also good at “getting scrappy” and “comfortable with being uncomfortable,” two additional traits James said will be necessary to transition to clean energy sources and reduce massive inequalities across the globe.
Look at the Big Picture, Then Start Small
If the endgame is, in James’s words, embedding ESG principles “in everything that you do” so that one day it will be “business as usual to consider the ‘E,’ the ‘S,’ and the ‘G,’” how should the alliance manager begin the journey? First, partnering pros should assess the broad areas in which alliances can potentially bring sustainability to bear.
“It will impact every part of an organization’s operations—every business process, all the supplier networks, the downstream side of selling, looking at the life cycle analysis of products, and so on,” said James.
Once you have the big picture, start small and find the proverbial low-hanging fruit. James gave a few examples—dispense eco-friendly swag at trade shows or ditch the trinkets and tchotchkes altogether, organize volunteering for you and your alliance counterpart’s alliance team members as a “bonding” exercise, or publish case studies that either profile a sustainability or social good–related accomplishment or at least weave ESG principles into broader customer success stories.
“I’m not talking about greenwashing because we should never do that,” James clarified, before adding that your CEO and your corporate communications department “would love you” for touting your ESG triumphs.
Finally, James suggested adding ESG as a fourth dimension to the usual “triple win” involving your organization, the partner, and the client.
“What did we altogether, or the three of us altogether, do that has actually positively moved the needle on one or several of these ESG metrics?” she said.
Overcoming the Elephant and the Frog to Make a Difference on Earth
Yes, the challenge seems daunting—“it’s like eating an elephant,” James acknowledged—and there are undoubtedly obstacles in grabbing ESG initiatives by the tusk. We are collectively encountering plenty of apathy as a society—we could be “like frogs in the pot” if we’re not careful, James noted in a separate conversation after the event. And there is active resistance, as well, which comes in the form of complex ESG issues, such as climate denial, executive pay disparities, and modern slavery. However, there are many allies in the fight, and she exhorted listeners to seek them out and cherish the opportunity to make progress together.
“Work with the people who actually want to team up and make a difference,” said James. “We can’t spend our precious time and energy trying to convert those who don’t.”
After all, overcoming skeptics is another thing alliance managers are already used to: How many times has an alliance manager had to convince salespeople to incorporate partner products and services into their sales motions or twist the arms of internal pharmaceutical laboratory researchers to collaborate with biotechs that own promising IP in a particular therapeutic area?
The bottom line: Alliance managers can make a big difference.
“[It] is an amazing opportunity for all of us to ask ourselves the question, ‘What kind of world do we want to live in?’ I’ve never felt more optimistic about this being an opportunity for each of us to contribute to creating a better world, as individuals, but also as alliance professionals,” said James.
