Outsourcing for Radical Change: A Bold Approach to Enterprise Transformation

When performance is on track, communications are easy and trust builds naturally. Every executive who has gone through a transformational outsourcing experience would admit, however, that relationships are not linear. They are rocky. Just as good progress welds them, setbacks of all sorts threaten them. Leaders create and sustain a sublime tension between the centrifugal relationship forces that pull people together and the centripetal forces that drive them apart. The former nurture community, but threaten to make a team insular; the latter foster discord, but provoke valuable insights. Leaders keep their organizations on the creative edge by balancing the two. How?

• Effective executives are prepared to give before they get. They start off by trusting to establish a positive environment.

• They approach issues with their partner the same way they would with a valuable long-term employee. They wouldn’t think of firing this person or taking him or her to court to remedy a performance problem. They approach their partner with the same attitude.

• Leaders take the personal responsibility to make the relationship work. Executives on both sides of outsourcing deals—even those who set out to develop strong partnerships—are often surprised by the amount of personal energy and commitment these initiatives require of them. Many describe a defining moment at which they arrive in frustration at the almost overwhelming issues that threaten to sabotage their plans. Instead of retreating to their corner to blame their counterpart, they decide that the onus of making the relationship work is on their own shoulders. From that moment forward, transformational outsourcing has a chance to succeed.