Coalition Building

Enterprise Design Patterns | Impact Patterns

#3: Coalition Building

“You win by working hard, making tough decisions and building coalitions.”
- John Engler

Related Patterns:

#5: Co-Created Enterprise Design Charter, #7: Safe Negotiation Space, #15: Listening to Understand, #13: Nurtured Trust, #24: Corporate Politics

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You need to stimulate the collaboration between many people in the enterprise.

In this context:

The many people working on the design of the enterprise in parallel are often working in silos and have their own concerns. Your new job intersects with theirs, often leading to conflicts and obstacles. Without active collaboration of these other people, your ability to function as an Enterprise Designer is severely limited.

Therefore:

Connect with people working in roles with cross-company challenges. Search for experienced people like middle managers, product developers, customer experience designers, process managers, subject matter experts, business analysts, etc. Find out what makes them tick. Co-create ideas for sharing creations and collaboration to achieve your mutual goals:

• Share your Enterprise Design intentions and invite people to collaborate, starting with asking them about their views of the enterprise;
• Listen to understand their pains and intentions and try to understand how you can help them and how their goals are related to yours;
• Present your key learnings from pre-existing wisdom and help them understand your mission and how you can help them with theirs;
• Invite them to co-create the Enterprise Design Charter and announce that you are planning to invite them to the safe negotiation space;
• Invite them to become ambassadors for your collaborative Enterprise Design work, helping you socialise its mission and bring more supporters into the coalition.

Consequently:

You have started to plant the seeds for the collaboration needed to achieve your mission.