Partnering - The Management Edge : The Management Edge | Dramatically Increasing Performance and Productivity

From its inception 32 years ago, The Management Edge® (TME) has focused on collaborative work processes – the use of collaboration rather than competition or contention to achieve organizational goals most creatively, efficiently, and effectively. Collaborative work process is the underpinning of all effective team building processes. Multi-organizational Partnering is a specific form of team building adapted for use in the DOD and IRP Program and DOD Construction Workshops.

Partnering as a management concept involves using a variety of tools and techniques for building strong relationships and trust between the involved parties so that they can identify and achieve shared goals that would be difficult or impossible to achieve in a traditional adversarial or competitive environment. Participants in Partnering programs typically receive training in awareness of self and others, and in effective interpersonal and group problem solving and decision- making skills; all aimed at improving their abilities to recognize and transcend personal and organizational biases. The Management Edge has provided this training since 1993 to seal thousands of individuals on hundreds of teams. We developed the course using best practices and research on how to accelerate team development.

The Installation Restoration Program (IRP) Facilitated Partnering process, as practiced by the U.S. Navy, Air Force and The Management Edge, Inc. expands on this by adding goal setting, action planning, conflict management, and effective meeting management training, so that Teams are more able to sustain their collaborative efforts over time, in the face of controversy, and through inevitable changes in Team membership. The IRP model involves a formal management and procedural structure, plus active facilitation and ongoing, real time training interventions as further means of maintaining and reinforcing Team effectiveness.