Small Business Today Magazine FEB 2015 TAYLOR CONSTRUCTION MANAGMENT | Page 19

EDITORIALFEATURE Why Collaborations Fail • There has been a lack of communication and understanding of each other thereby underutilizing each other’s talents. • Participants have had one or more bad experiences and tend to over-generalize about the worth of consortiums. • One partner puts another down on the basis of academic credentials or some professional designation that sets themselves apart from other team members. • Participants exhibit the “Lone Ranger Syndrome” and prefer the comfort of communicating only one person. • Participants exhibit the “I Can Do That Syndrome” and think that they do the same exact things that other consortium members do and, thus, see no value in working together, sharing projects, or referring business. • Learn from industries where consortiums are the rule rather than the exception (space, energy, construction, high-tech, etc.). • Junior associates of consortium members want to hoard the billing dollars in-house to look good to their superiors, enhance their billable quotas, or fulfill other objectives that they are not sophisticated enough to identify.   • Subcontractor, supplier, support talent, and vendor information can be shared. Reasons to give the concept a chance: • Think of the “ones that got away”; opportunities that could have been created but the contract was awarded to someone else. • The marketplace is continually changing. • Consortiums are inevitable.  If we don’t do it soon and often, others will beat us to it.    Hank Moore has advised over 5,000 client organizations including public sector agencies, small businesses, non-profit organizations, and 100 of the Fortune 500.  Contact Hank by phone at 713-668-0664, by email at [email protected], or visit his website at www.hankmoore.com.