Finding Allies, Building Alliances: 8 Elements that Bring—and Keep—People Together

SIX

A Clearly Defined Purpose

Creating a statement of purpose, communicating it, and obtaining buy-in from participants can be challenging, but they're absolutely essential tasks for value alliance aspirants. Without a clear, well-defined purpose, collaborations fail or drift into unproductive and endless discussions. More specifically, the collaborations experience purpose creep—an inexorable broadening of scope that eventually makes it impossible to relieve the common pain that drew the group together in the first place, or that creates lethally low morale as the collaboration struggles with overly ambitious and varied goals. Without a clearly ...