The Nitty-Gritty Begins

We're moving from concepts into details now, and these details are affecting the concept. It's the cycle from the micro to the macro and back again. Room booking, registration processes, financial processes ... all of these must now be addressed, because we're moving into the launch of the first partnership program this fall. Because it's the first one, it will serve as the precedent-setter for a number of things. As such, the discussions are time-consuming and somewhat stressful. Both institutions are having to inspect and perhaps change what they're been doing for years (decades) in order for the partnership to thrive.

Communication is critical in everything. I've now formed a few cross-institutional committees in the hopes that information will flow more easily from place to place. Again, this feels like the macro connecting to the micro. The "doers" need to check in with the "deciders", and without trust and good communications we'd be hooped. Inevitably someone gets forgotten, and so we need to backtrack, inform and re-shape committees and lines of communication. The interpersonal politics are also making themselves felt now ... who wants to work with whom (or not).

At the same time, I'm having to keep the high-end decision-makers well-informed. They're the people that only need to come together every month or two to decide on the broad sweep of things. The upcoming meeting will be a really good check-in to make sure things are progressing as planned.

And things are going very well, in my estimation. We have three smaller partnerships programs and two large and exciting partnership programs being launched. The two bigger ones will take about a year to develop, but they'll be great to work on. The smaller programs are great opportunities for other areas who are more hesitant to experiment a little before committing to something significant.