by Matt Troup

The word “partner” can take on any number of meanings in today’s culture. A partner can be a business associate, someone you play sports with, a romantic relationship, colloquialism or  a good friend. In business, it can tend to get used entirely too much. I have worked in organizations that refer to just about everyone as a “partner.” What makes a good partnership and why is it important in today’s business world?

Reid Hoffman, entrepreneur who created LinkedIn, once said, “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you are playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” 

At Conway Regional, we have embraced Hoffman’s quote wholeheartedly. Partnerships simply make us better, smarter and stronger. We have a partnership with CHI St. Vincent in Little Rock that enables us to save money on supplies, service important clinical equipment and implement best practices. Our partnership with Mayo Labs gives us access to clinically complex lab testing that would otherwise not be available in our community. They also help us to strategically operate lab services across Central Arkansas. 

We have a partnership with a board in Dardanelle to manage its hospital. We bring our healthcare expertise to Dardanelle to help serve the needs of the community. And I would be remiss if I did not mention partnerships with our board and medical staff. The strength of those partnerships is absolutely foundational to our organization’s success. 

These are just a few partnerships that make up Conway Regional. While these partnerships range in scope, formality and resource allocation, there are certain core components that successful partnerships require to be viable:

Trust

Everyone would likely agree that any relationship without trust is doomed to fail. In fact, I would argue that a partnership cannot exist without trust. It might simply be described as a “business relationship.” Without trust, I exchange my resources in exchange for another’s resources — i.e., we buy a good or service from another entity. Trust is the fundamental element that takes the business relationship to partnership, from transaction to transformation. I would define trust along two planes: competence and ethics.

I have the blessing of having lots of family and friends. While I know them to be good, ethical people, I likely would not trust many of them to run a hospital, clinic or business endeavor. One can have great ethics and no competence. To have a great partnership, ethics and competence are critical. Likewise, I know many healthcare companies out there that are very competent but lack trust. I would not enter a partnership with them any more than I would my cousin who is a great person.

Engagement

One of our strongest partnerships at Conway Regional is with our medical staff. I don’t say this purely on emotion or in an attempt to gain favor with physicians who may read this. I say it as a matter of fact. 

For the past three years, Press Ganey, a national survey organization that surveys several hundred hospitals across the United States, surveys our medical staff on their engagement and alignment with our hospital. The past three-year average shows that our physicians are among the top 10 percent in both engagement and alignment when compared to other medical staffs. 

As great as that performance is, it does not necessarily mean that we always agree. To the contrary, being in partnership sometimes means each party has to hear things we might not want to hear, address things we would sometimes rather ignore and make difficult or sometimes unpopular decisions. A true partner is going to sometimes disagree and challenge you and maybe even make your job more difficult. However, in the end, it is the other perspective that makes our organization better. 

Critic vs. cynic

Good partners critique, making you better. Inherent in this critique is not simply pointing something out as wrong — it is offering and engaging in a solution. That’s different than a cynic. I would define a cynic as someone who points out the wrong or the failure but does not want to engage in a solution. A cynic can never be a good partner. 

Power

I love power! I want power in all of my partnerships. Power is what it is all about, and if I don’t have it, then I think I’m failing as a leader.

Now, many of you may read that and think, “Man, that Troup guy is egomaniacal!” But read the above and replace the word “power” with “influence.” What is power other than influence? Don’t all leaders desire more influence — influence to improve quality of life, ease suffering and improve performance? I would argue that we all want more power regardless of our role.

There are many forms of power. I can have power because of my title, my position, my age or seniority or by birthright, just to name a few. I can also use power in different ways. Lord Acton, a 19th century British politician is credited as saying, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is an accurate reflection of what can happen with the wrong kind of power. Power sourced by greed, ambition or malice is doomed to fail and pales in comparison to referent power. 

Fundamental to referent power is the ability to influence others through interpersonal relationships and leadership. Referent power comes from a good place, a place of trust. When I have strong referent power, I do not need to “drive accountability” with my team. My team wants to be accountable because they revere the relationship of trust and don’t want to let the team down. Partnerships can be and often are defined by ownership percentages, legal documents or other formalities. Those elements are fundamental in many partnerships, but to have a partnership that is truly transformational, they must have referent power. 

Shared Identity

A good partner is loyal and is going to identify with your challenge, struggle or endeavor. Conway Regional has found itself taking strong positions on various issues over the past few years. Some of these have been polarizing. To quote the great Country and Western musician, Aaron Tippin, in his hit song “You Got to Stand for Something,” “You gotta stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” 

Good partnerships have a shared purpose, objective or make a stand. If you can’t identify with your partner, get engaged in the mission or share values, then you’re likely not going to have a partnership that will amount to much or be transformative. 

I would be naïve to believe that all of our partnerships share all of our values to the same degree or even in the same context as we do. However, I do firmly believe that there is a part of our story they genuinely engage in, support or identify with. When I describe our organization to others, I will use words like “family,” our promise to be bold, exceptional and called, that we are “of” and exist “for” the community, and that we do all of this with a heartfelt and sincere belief that we are here to serve others. A partnership may have a very specific purpose, but when partnerships share calling and purpose, then transformation occurs. We go from an economic relationship to one that has potential to add value beyond the numbers, to take two plus two and come up with six. 

I was once asked by someone considering entering graduate school to become a hospital administrator, “Which is more important: the technical knowledge of how hospitals work or leadership skills?” This person thought she needed to go to graduate school to learn the technical aspects of how hospitals operate. You can’t be a good leader without some level of understanding of how things work, but the more “experienced” I become, the more I realize that my primary function is to manage partnerships. To build trust, engage and align partners, influence and create or strengthen a shared identity. My success and that of our organization cannot effectively operate without strong partnerships.