Playing around with paradoxes in values-driven alliances

People in values-driven alliances want to contribute to a just and sustainable society. Most values-driven alliances are multi-party alliances, many of which have evolved into global alliances to increase societal impact. The differences between the participating parties make the management of values-driven alliances quite complex. The trick is to embrace paradoxes and tensions in creating and developing alliances. 

What are paradoxes? 

Identifying and naming tensions and conflicts are a precondition for successful cooperation in values-driven alliances. Most conflicts, choices and negotiations within an alliance essentially consist of a tense congruence between mission, vision and strategy. They often deal with the alignment between mission, shared values and the implicit and explicit goals of the alliance as a whole and the relationship between the collective mission and the individual ambitions and goals of the actors involved.  

Alliances as such can be considered a vessel full of dualities. In the life course of alliances, trade-offs, choices and decisions are always necessary to remain viable and agile. 

A paradox consists of two opposing perspectives and related actions, each of which is meaningful and defensible. Managers and leaders must position themselves in the field of tension between the two perspectives and deal with the paradox by continuously balancing between these two extremes.  

Recognizing paradoxes in creating and developing alliances can help members in the alliance deal with problems, tensions, and strategic choices. We describe the four most powerful paradoxes involved in creating and developing values-driven alliances. 

Rely on feeling and on accurate analyses 

A paradox in forming values-driven alliances is how much time is invested during formation in trusting each other and formulating a mission, vision and shared values, and the time spent in careful analysis of reputation, contribution and reliability of the partners. An accurate analysis helps to reduce risks and value everyone's contribution. It contributes to the prevention of opportunistic behaviour by one of the partners.  

Continuing to analyse for too long raises the question of whether the person performing the analysis trusts the other and can be trusted. The emotional appeal is supplanted by rational analysis. Particularly at the beginning of alliance formation, it is essential to spend time on personal trust and to give space to feelings, motives and individual involvement. Only attention to feeling and trust can lead to disillusionment if it later turns out that the partners have little to offer each other. That is why it is relevant to make everyone's contributions visible. 

Balancing between content and process 

The paradox between process and content is especially visible during the foundation phase because the number of members increases while the initial intentions of the initiators are relevant to the vitality of the network. New members and stakeholders admitted to the alliance must understand and believe in the ambitious dreams of the promoters. Common aspirations, collective beliefs, and shared values are formed and sometimes adjusted. And decisions are made about the functioning and development of an alliance.  

At the process level, it is about bringing beliefs together, building trust and maintaining collaborative relationships. At a substantive level, it is about formulating achievable goals, setting up the management, using quality systems, and achieving and celebrating results. Building alliances is a balancing act between focus on the process of collaboration and focus on content with tangible results. Content and process refer to and need each other, but the orientation of the two is fundamentally different. The trick is to bridge these differences. 

Stability and manoeuvrability 

All alliances face changes in the global environment and uncertainties about the future. The alliance will have to evolve to cope with these changes. Resilience and agility are then essential. With resilience, the alliance retains its core and finds strength from its identity. A shared and clear identity offers stability in an uncertain environment.  

In the case of agility, the alliance has great adaptability, which is based on mutual trust and intensive communication. The more smoothly and quickly an alliance can adapt to change, the more value it will create in the long run for its partners and wider society. Developing alliances is a balancing act between a pursuit of stability and agility. The mission and vision contribute to a stable identity of the alliance and at the same time invite agility. 

Consolidate and co-create 

In values-driven alliances, members work together on a mission. They want to create a better future and contribute to a prosperous, just and sustainable society. The activities are rooted in shared values. In creating an attractive future, the energy focuses on generating appealing ideas of what a desirable future might be and possible ways to realize these ideas. 

The paradox means that the alliance is constantly moving forward and looking for ways to realize its ambition. At the same time, an alliance needs consolidation to offer quality to its members and time to think about what contributes to results and what is feasible in the future. Sometimes inspiration can run away with people, perhaps leading to a beautiful vision of the future, but a vision can only be achieved by having an eye for the contrast between dream and reality.  

If the alliance's mission and vision doesn't match its current capabilities, disbelief ensues. If the ambition isn't challenging enough or just more of the same, disillusionment ensues. It's a challenge to imagine a tempting future that lies at the limit of what the players in the alliance can handle and where their strength and commitment lie. The essence is to find a balance between a challenging and at the same time realistic vision of the future that people want to work on with energy to bring that future one step closer. 

Recognizing and bridging paradoxes 

The main challenge for values-driven alliances is to keep its ambition alive and to handle paradoxes in its life cycle. Societal dynamics and dynamics in human relationships are always there, and it is not uncommon for ambition to fade over time. The alliance may even fall apart when some of the members insist on continuing to pursue the original values, while another wants to move to a more classic, corporate or power-oriented role. 

Recognizing paradoxes in the development of alliances at an early stage is essential in identifying threats and failure factors in the different life stages of the values-driven alliance. It is important for all alliances to get the right members with the right motivation on board, to clarify the meaning, values and goals of the alliance, to build mutual trust, to promote open communication between members and maintain the right balance between social significance and business goals. Carefully weighing and transcending paradoxes makes an alliance stronger and helps it retain its essence. 

This article is based on Jaap Boonstra's recent book, written together with Marcos Eguiguren: Alliances for Sustainable Futures (Edward Elgar, 2023)