My Boss entered my office and sat down! This was strange! Very strange! To the best of my recollection, that was the only time he ever sat in my office in the years I reported to him.
Very unusually, he started with some small talks. This is not my boss oh! The real matter must be heavy and important.
“Solomon, we just finished a meeting with the board. We are reorganising the Company. We are going flatter. Rather than the current regional structure we have now, Nigeria will be divided into 2 Divisions.
I asked a few questions around the thinking behind the new structure. Was it not too wide a span of control? I offered my opinion (I preferred the 4 Region Structure headed by Regional General Managers) and kept asking probing questions.
My boss’s body language suggested that he was going somewhere and my questions where a distraction. I took ‘dressing’ and stopped talking.
“Each Division will have a Director of Operations (DO) and a Deputy Director of Operations (DDO). Mr John Doe has been pencilled down as the Director of Operations for one of the Divisions and you have been pencilled down to work with him as the Deputy Director of Operations”.
My eyes bulged; my jaws dropped.
That was a very substantial appointment. It was major! It would be a big jump for me. Operationally, it would make me one of the four most powerful people in the business. Working with the DO, we will have about 3,000 people directly reporting to us.
But there was a problem. I did not quite get along with the nominee for Director of Operations. I was very uneasy about working with him.
“Boss, I am very humbled by this consideration. But I don’t get along with John Doe. We can’t work together!”.
My wily Boss looked at me and smiled knowingly. I think he expected that response. For about a minute, there was an uneasy silence.
“Solomon, tell me, what do you need to succeed in any endeavour? Friends or enemies?”
His question jolted me from my reverie. With my boss, don’t rush to answer any question (it is either a trick question or a curved ball. It was not unusual, for him to decide what the answer is after you have answered ‘wrongly’).
“You need both, Boss. Friends to cheer you on and enemies to keep you motivated”. I added some other gibberish that I can’t recall now.
He grinned in a way that told me I was lost at sea.
“Young man, you need neither!” (Yes. I was a young man… in my mid 30s)
I was puzzled and mystified. “Boss, you have to need one or the other or both”
“My friend, you need allies! Build alliances based on interest. If the interest of your worst enemy aligns with yours, even they, will fight to ensure that you succeed!!”
I took a deep breath. What I heard felt right, but I knew I needed to ponder this a little more. But my boss was not through.
“Solomon, if you can quickly establish common ground and aligned interest with John Doe and he can see that you are unflinchingly committed to driving that aligned interest, his success and longevity, he will become your biggest and best advocate”.
“See, especially as you rise higher in your career, you will not get the opportunity to work only with the people you like or get along with. To get to the top, you must develop the ability to work successfully, build a formidable team and deliver good results with people you don’t get along with”.
I knew in my heart that there was something deep in what my boss was saying… though I did not completely agree. This alliance talk, what did it actually mean? Supposing these are interests that I could not ‘align’ with on grounds of principle.
Then he delivered a prophecy and a warning.
“If you forget anything, don’t forget this. You have reached a level in your career growth where competence is taken for granted. To go further, you must build alliances that depend on common interest. Solomon, I see you want to get to the top. I see you getting there, but when you do, you will be surprised that the top is very hollow. I fear that you will not survive there. You need to work hard on cultivating and building alliances”.
As I later pondered this, I realised that this was deep wisdom. During the 2nd world war, The USSR on the one hand and the United States and Britain on the other were ideological enemies. This did not stop them from becoming allies when they had a common existential interest in defeating Nazi Germany.
Eventually that appointment was never made (I guess the DO had misgivings about working with me too and he didn’t benefit from the coaching I got) but I had learnt a valuable lesson that served me well later in growing my career and when I went through major career turbulence in the system.
So, dear friends, as you go into 2022. Make it a cardinal goal to cultivate relationships and build better alliances. Happy New Year!