Partnerships are underwritten on the pitch and judged on the second year. By then the launch energy is gone, the original champions have often moved on, and what remains is whatever was actually written down.
What we measure
- Response time on bad news. Not on good news — everyone is fast with good news. The interval between a partner discovering a problem and telling us is the single most predictive number we track.
- Whether the people who signed are still involved. Continuity is not sentimentality; it is the difference between a relationship and a contract.
- How the first disagreement was handled. Every partnership has one in the first eighteen months. How it went tells us more than the previous eighteen months of reporting.
A partner who brings you a problem in week one is worth more than a partner who brings you a solution in month six.
What we stopped measuring
Meeting frequency. We used to treat a regular cadence as a health indicator and it is not — some of our best relationships are quiet for a quarter and then entirely open for a week, and some of the worst were impeccably scheduled.
The uncomfortable one
We also ask whether the partnership has cost the partner anything yet. If it has not, we do not yet know what it is worth. That question has ended two conversations early, which we consider a good outcome for everyone.