Manage-wise

Build strong alliances

According to one popular saying, there is no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM.’ Who are we kidding?

It’s true that the most successful teams put the needs of the group ahead of any individual needs. But the best teams, whether in the boardroom or on the football field, are also made up of talented players who turn in extraordinary performances. This dynamic push/pull between group success and personal accomplishment means that all teams, and team players, must constantly do a balancing act. When the balance is right, both the team and the individual accomplish more than they ever thought possible.

Alone we cannot accomplish anything worthwhile, so as you pursue your Level 3 (long-term, professional and personal) goals, you need to get others on board. At the same time, it is your personal vision for the future that will excite and motivate others and persuade them to join you. You, too, have to do a balancing act.

How do you get others to help you meet your individual goals? The answer is alliances.

Alliances pave the way

All of us can live a more rewarding, fulfilling life, and can make improvements in and for the world, if we each take responsibility for doing so. However, because we live and operate in systems that are becoming more and more interdependent and mutually reinforcing, what one of us accomplishes can have an impact on countless others. When you light the first match, before long there is a bonfire, crackling with the ideas and enthusiasm of other people.

Achieving what you want in a rapid-fire world always begins with you and your unique positive images of what the future holds. Without your goals, the status quo would win out. You would experience only minimal progress and limited growth, and your vast reservoir of potential would remain untapped. Instead, you have created your vision of the best possible future, shaped by your personal sense of curiosity and commitment, your intuition and awareness, and your very own capacity for reflection, optimism and imagination. Now the time has come to enlist others.

In my experience, people who are naturally outgoing and extroverted are happy to go out into the world and recruit allies, while those who are by nature more reserved find it more difficult to get started. There’s no way to get around our paradoxical human need for both solitude and community. It is impossible to get by having one without the other—especially when we’re contending with rapid-fire challenges that require both individual and collective achievement to shape a positive future.

If we stay to ourselves, seek too much solitude, or become overly self-reliant, we deprive ourselves of the rich, supportive network of connections that are so essential to turn the tide of the future in our favour. On the other hand, if we depend too much on the opinions, guidance and approval of other individuals or groups, we can lose our sense of direction, and with it our momentum and desire. None of us wants to commit either error.

Building strong alliances solves our dilemma. An alliance, in the sense I am using the term, is a relationship of mutual influence and collaboration between you and those gifted individuals who are more energetic, more knowledgeable, and more influential than the average person. In the best alliances we have a strong sense of being able to ‘go it alone’ when it counts, plus a deep sense of companionship. If we need it, help is at hand.

Whether you realise it or not, you have already laid the foundation for building strong alliances. From the very start of learning this six-step process for achieving what you want, you have sought others’ advice and opinions about the clarity, direction and worth of your Level 3 goals. You have asked colleagues to consider how your goals might benefit them directly and indirectly. You have searched for mentors to imitate and coaches to guide you. In a very real sense, you have been cultivating your alliances all along the way. Now you’re going to focus your attention on strengthening those alliances and building new ones.

Four types of friends in need

To achieve your vision of the best possible future, you need allies. There are four specific types of alliances that are particularly helpful in achieving Level 3 goals. You may only need a few allies, or you may need several. I strongly recommend that you secure at least one ally from each category because they are so helpful, but in some cases you may not need all four types, or certain allies may play more than one role. Although all of your allies should understand your vision for the future, is not necessary for each one to be involved in every aspect of your Level 3 agenda. As an added bonus, these alliances will also help you respond creatively to whatever happens with your Level 2 (sudden, unanticipated situations, good or bad) agenda, whether circumstances are holding you back or catapulting you forward.

Champions: Your champions will advance your cause because they have adopted your vision as if it were their own. Champions are able to lead others to work towards the success of your vision as enthusiastically and as diligently as you do. Champions help you leverage your leadership. They stay close to you and your followers to offer encouragement and guidance every step of the way.

Endorsers: Cultivating alliances with endorsers brings legitimacy to your cause. Endorsers are people who have the power to open doors. They will vouch for you and your vision with others who do not yet know and identify with you. Endorsers provide a positive, halo effect that brings you support by association.

Supporters: Your supporters will spread the word about the direction of your goals and achievements via the rumour mill and other robust, informal communication systems. Supporters infiltrate the small but highly influential circles in your world—the cliques, the teams, the identity groups that form by virtue of education, ethnicity, gender and the like. A small, committed band of supporters is invaluable because they will translate your message into the vernacular of each group they belong to.

Companions: Your companions provide you with a peer group. Although they are in pursuit of their own separate and unique Level 3 agendas, they know you personally and share your desire to achieve important, life-shaping goals. They know how tough it is to do what you’re doing. Your companion group is your safe harbour, your port in good times and bad.

Excerpt from When Harder Faster Smarter is Not Enough by Kathryn Cramer. Reproduced with permission. © 2004, Tata McGraw-Hill