One exercise I’ve found helpful before starting a project is to have each stakeholder write down their goals and expectations, and potential risks and rewards – both for them personally and for the people the project is intended to serve.
But there have been a number of partnerships recently in which my personal goals and expectations had changed, or I suspected that the other person’s had. Some were professional partnerships, and some were personal or family related.
I found it very helpful to have deliberate conversations with each of those partners. In some cases, we documented some changes to expectations. In some cases, we changed our approach to shift our focus. And in one case, we found that I had only imagined a change in expectations, and we chose to keep things as they were.
But without those conversations, I wouldn’t have known which partnerships needed changes and which ones didn’t.
Let me encourage you to consider the different projects or partnerships that involve you. Have you all made your expectations clear? Is there a chance that some of those expectations have changed? Think about which relationships you’ll want to revisit to make sure the latest expectations are clear.
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