The Guide to Designing Powerful Alliances
What is a Designed Alliance?
When we build products that are meant to last, we plan for and invest in the
code, design, and product infrastructure. That infrastructure gives us a
foundation to build on top of.
Trying to build on top of a crumbly foundation or no foundation at all is not
sustainable, and it's slow — you're constantly propping things back up. When
you have a foundation, building out product features, editing a design
element, and adding new services — these things all become much easier.
The same is true about our relationship infrastructure, and there are many
tools and best practices to invest in that well.
Designing an alliance is one of the most powerful tools for investing in the
infrastructure of our relationships. The people we work with are our allies.
The way to make our alliances effective are by explicitly having a
conversation around how to structure it.
How to use this Designed Alliance guide
Print two copies of this resource out, and share one with your colleague so
they can follow along.
If it feels uncomfortable to have this sort of conversation, that's ok!
Acknowledge and embrace the discomfort as you exercise this muscle. Being
courageous in experimenting with new leadership tools is an important part
of growing as a leader.
Get more tools and learn the additional nuances for this tool by joining us at
coleadership.com.
Happy Designing!
— Jean and Edmond
*The concept of a designed alliance is adapted from our training at the
Coaches Training Institute.
The 3 Steps to Designing an Alliance
1. Invite someone you work with to a designed alliance conversation.
“I wanted to just schedule some time to learn more about what's important to
you and share what's important to me in working together.”
2. Establish positive intent.
“I'd like to figure out how we can work together most effectively to make our
project / team / company succeed.”
“I'd like to figure out how we can create a stronger and more effective working
relationship.”
3. Discover and share what's important.
Start with these three foundational questions.
• “What’s important to you in working together? What else?”
• “What's important to you for this project? What else?”
• “What does success look like for our work together?”
Follow up with additional questions.
• “What are you most excited about in working together? Least excited about?”
• “What was your most successful working relationship like?
• “What would cause our work together to fail?”
• “What assumptions do you have about our work?”
• “What do you worry about for this work?”
Closing the conversation (for now)
As your 1:1 time comes to a close, notice if there are any obvious tactical things
to agree upon. Jot those down somewhere in a shared doc.
The alliance is a starting foundation. Revisit and iterate on it over time.
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