Originally from: AAA Handbook on Construction Arbitration and ADR - 2nd Edition

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I. Introduction

Project team members, who participate in the partnering workshop, subscribe to the partnering charter and believe in the value of its appropriate application to their performance on the job, are not partners or members of a partnership. What they are, and should be referred to, are “team players” or cooperators. But “partners?” No!

The dictionary definition of the term “partner” may have abetted the lay perception of a partnering participant as a partner in the ordinary sense of a colleague or an associate. In the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed. 1993), this term has several meanings, one of which is “one associated with another, esp. in an action: associate, colleague” and “one of two or more persons who play together in a game against an opposing side....”

Despite this popular usage, in the world of construction contractual relationships the nouns “partner” and “partnership” have very different meanings from the verb “to partner” (as in the partnering process). When those meanings are misunderstood or, worse, misapplied, serious problems can arise.