Partnering with the Frenemy

Book excerpt: Selected as a finalist for the 2018 Leonard L. Berry Marketing Book Award! Why do crucial business partnerships and alliances fail so often and how can you keep it from happening to you? Partnering with the Frenemy answers these questions, helping you anticipate, prevent, and solve the problems that lead close business relationships to implode. Drawing on cutting-edge research, Sandy Jap illuminates the widespread “frenemy” phenomenon in organizational partnerships, where partners who start as non-competitive “friends” become “enemies” over time. She identifies key economical and structural causes of “frenemization,” in which success creates imbalances in power dynamics, leading partners to generate resentment, contempt, and often direct competition. She also illuminates crucial social causes for partnership failure, where seemingly innocuous acts of interpersonal opportunism and “sins of omission” gradually poison collaboration. To support her insights, she offers numerous case studies, both ongoing and historical, including Samsung/Google, Martha Stewart/Macy’s, Oracle/Sun Microsystems, Best Buy/Apple, Calvin Klein/Warnaco, and Nike/Footlocker. Most important, she offers specific recommendations for avoiding problems, revitalizing weakening partnerships, and recognizing when a partnership can’t be saved. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT CONTRACTS AND MONEY Understand how to better manage emotions, suspicions, and expectations from Day 1 WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM OTHERS’ FAILING PARTNERSHIPS Anticipate, prevent, and mitigate the core causes of business relationship failure RECOGNIZE PARTNERING “OPPORTUNISM” BEFORE IT DESTROYS COLLABORATION Fix partnering problems while you still can IT’S NOT A MARRIAGE: HOW TO BECOME COMFORTABLE SAYING GOODBYE Know when to end a partnership, and how to part as “friends”