It’s the time of the year when our minds turn to the delicious dishes that signify the festive period. For me, it’s definitely the family favorite, the old-fashioned trifle.
There are some key ingredients that go into making a great trifle, which we’ll get to. But during my short time at contentgroup, I’ve started to realise that a good trifle is much like a great partnership.
Partnerships come in all shapes and sizes. However, just like the crucial elements of a trifle, there are core elements required to help ensure partnerships are successful for all parties involved.
Ingredients:
- 1x Sponge cake (preferably with jam swirled through it). Also known as “an understanding of objectives”.
- Fruit – such as peaches, strawberries, and banana (tinned if needed, otherwise fresh is great too). Also known as “content”.
- Jelly – make it green to help add to the festive colour scheme. Also known as “clear, consistent and proactive communication”.
- Custard – lots of it! Also known as “accountability”.
Directions:
1 - Use sponge cake for the base layer of your trifle.
The sponge cake not only acts as the foundation for your other ingredients, but also plays the key role in soaking up their flavours.
In a great partnership, it’s crucial to identify and understand each party’s objectives. Align your perspectives and combine your shared goals.
These guiding principles become the foundation of your relationship and provide the base layer for a beneficial partnership. Much like the sponge cake soaking up all the flavours, the objectives of a partnership need to be absorbed into all areas of the partnership.
2 - Add the fruit on top of the cake to provide flavour within the trifle.
This will help to combine the other ingredients into a well-rounded dessert.
Alike the fruit, content is king when it comes to generating great outcomes within a partnership. No matter the type of partnership, the ability to create and share meaningful, targeted, and relevant content ensures tangible results for each partner. This content provides the flavour to the partnership, the avenue through which we are truly able to tailor the outcomes for the partnership.
3 - A healthy serving of jelly to help give your trifle a strong and supportive layer is a must.
Green or red (or whatever colour tickles your fancy) should be the ingredient that helps bring the bottom and top layers all together.
Just like the jelly, communication is the supportive layer of the partnership. Clear, consistent, and proactive communication is crucial when managing a partnership. I recently heard a quote: “bad news doesn’t age well”, and this couldn’t be truer when it comes to managing a partnership.
4 - Add ready-made custard, for best results (now I’m just being biased based on what I’ve grown up with).
The key is to have plenty as the top layer of your trifle (maybe some cream too if you’re feeling very fancy). This layer will give you the ideal first impression when digging in a spoon to serve.
Much like a crucial first impression, accountability is imperative to a successful partnership. Additionally, ensuring that all parties are accountable provides a fantastic “final layer”, of any partnership. Keep it simple, and “do what you say you’re going to do”. Conversely, if there are barriers or hurdles, be accountable for those with all parties and own your role in creating a solution for these speedbumps.
contentgroup takes pride on being able to execute a rewarding and meaningful partnership, no matter the context. Clear, consistent, and proactive communication, along with the innate ability to create meaningful content are second nature for us.
Moreover, we know exactly how to be accountable and ensure that partnership and project objectives remain the guiding principles during any commitment.
We look forward to showing all of this in action.
