Forging unlikely alliances?
How strange bedfellows can make effective strategic partners
By Michael Feuer
August 2007
William Shakespeare, in addition to
being a great playwright, was a very
savvy, strategic thinker whose writing reflects insights and valuable business
concepts.
In “The Tempest,” his 1611 play about a shipwreck, Shakespeare’s lead character — who
faces possible death — proclaims that “misery
acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” As
this suggests, one can forge an alliance with virtually anyone when the objective is clear and
the bottom-line results benefit all involved.
Who says a partner always has to be on your
side? What is necessary is that the alliance creates a win-win for each collaborator.
Another work provides further evidence of
this proclamation. In “The Godfather,” Michael
Corleone gives an order to his consigliere to
arrange a meeting with a rival mob boss
moments after the rival attempted to kill
Michael. The young godfather explains that he
was taught by his father to “keep your friends
close and your enemies closer.” And we
have all heard strategists, diplomats and
politicians offer similar pearls of wisdom,
including, “The enemy of my enemy is my
friend.”
In the business world, you can employ
these same concepts to achieve an objective, provided that, at the end of the day,
you are still standing after the unexpected
collaboration with your “strange bedfellow.” However, a couple of caveats do apply:
Be sure the bedfellow isn’t packing heat, and
avoid meeting in the back of a dimly lit restaurant near the bathroom where a weapon might
be hidden that could do you harm.
Let’s imagine a situation in which you can
create an ad hoc, special-purpose confederacy.
Assume you are trying to get a governing body
to provide an exception or allow something
that has never occurred before to take place.
Say you have big trucks that exceed the
weight limit for using a road that could save
you 30 minutes each trip to a construction site.
Instead, your drivers have to take the long way
around. You also have a big competitor who
needs to use this same road for a different project but can’t because of the same problem.
Working together, you could both go to the
community and offer to pay for two very
expensive, much needed traffic lights at either
end of the road and to repair the road if the
trucks damage it after the projects are completed. Voila! You would have a win for all
involved, even though each party might not be
enamored with either of the others.
By creating an unlikely alliance, you could
gain critical mass and a common voice.
So how do you get the ball rolling? You could
hire a bunch of attorneys to write a position
paper on why what you want to do is for the
greater good. The document could then be sent
to the governing body or media to see what
happens. With this strategy, you can be sure
that your fees for getting to this point will be
expensive, and there is a less than 50-50 chance
that this effort will be successful.
While it may seem counterintuitive, you need
to swallow hard and devise a plan to change
the rules of competitive engagement, at least
temporarily, by directly or indirectly approaching the rival head-on. If you aren’t comfortable
with picking up the phone and making your
pitch to your foresworn enemy, there are
numerous effective methods to broker a conversation and a “meet.”
Third parties, such as mutual suppliers, your
accountant or even a friend of a friend, can do
the heavy lifting without you running the risk of
personal embarrassment or rejection.
Do your homework and carefully outline a
script for your vicar representative that succinctly explains what you want to do and, most
importantly, why a coalition will work for all
parties. You just might be surprised at the positive back-channel response you receive to
your offer.
This scenario is played out daily in government, diplomacy and even in junior high
school, with a seventh-grade boy having another classmate ask the cute girl for a date on his
behalf. Don’t get hung up on this self-serving
collaboration, as it does not mean that you
have to stop preaching to your employees why
your competitor doesn’t deserve this or that. A
temporary “detente” does not signify the end of
a war.
If you still can’t suck it up and be comfortable
with sleeping with the enemy, just tell yourself
that it’s nothing personal, it’s just business. The
truth is, if you’re an innovative thinker, it really
is just business — smart business.
MICHAEL FEUER co-founded OfficeMax in 1988 with a friend and
partner. Starting with one store during a 16-year span, Feuer, as
CEO, grew the company to almost 1,000 stores worldwide, with
annual sales approximating $5 billion before selling this retail giant
for almost $1.5 billion in 2003 to Boise Cascade Corp. Feuer immediately launched another start-up, Max-Ventures, a retail/consumer
products venture capital operating and consulting firm headquartered in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. Feuer serves on a number of corporate and philanthropic boards and is a frequent speaker on business, marketing and building entrepreneurial enterprises. Reach him
with comments at mfeuer@max-ventures.com.
