4 Allies and Enemies
Political parties publish manifestos because a clear enunciation of a goal, a strategy or an approach is one of the best ways to garner support from like-minded individuals. It makes sense, then, having come up with the core concept of a strategy, to consider who would be likely to support it, who would oppose it, and how best to conduct the negotiations. These power or political relationships can be both inside and outside the organisation.
In a ten minute strategy, you have one minute to list the following groups of people:
Natural allies are groups that will inevitably support you once you declare your intention to pursue a particular course of action. This may be because of long-term allegiances, or because of the content of your strategy. Natural allies are not always an asset! They may come with additional baggage, such as networks you do not wish or need to be involved in, or particular approaches to problems which will hold you back.
Necessary allies are the groups or people that you actually need to make the strategy work. Your need for these should already have emerged in the Thinking or Resolve phases. You may find that your necessary allies are incompatible with your natural allies.
Natural enemies are groups or people who will automatically side against you, either because of who you are, or what you have done in the past, or their inevitable initial reaction to your strategy (when they do hear about it). If there are names which are both on the necessary allies and natural enemies list, you will need to find a way to win them over, perhaps by a more penetrating explanation of what your strategy is.
Necessary enemies are inevitable opponents of your strategy. They cannot be won over by a clearer explanation of your strategy, because the more they understand it, the more it runs counter to their interests. You may be able to win individuals over from a necessary enemy group, but the group itself will inevitably oppose you. There should not be anyone on both the necessary enemies and necessary allies list! If there is, and there is no way to run the strategy without them, and no way to adapt the strategy, then this particular strategy is certain to fail.
At this stage (or, indeed, any stage) in the ten minute process, it is perfectly acceptable to recognise that a particular strategic approach is not viable. One of the benefits of a light, rapid, portable process is that you can quickly identify failure candidates and go back to the thinking stage. In many ways this is the most important benefit of the approach: the more cumbersome the strategy process is, the greater the investment, and the harder it is to relinquish it.
Undecideds are not strictly necessary as a category, but it’s sometimes useful to log key names as you go. You may move them into other categories later in the process.
Back to the villagers in the Seven Samurai.
Their initial plan is to hire Samurai. Unfortunately for the villagers, Samurai are among their natural enemies — the long standing Samurai/villager hatred bubbles over at several points during the film, and one famous speech is considered to be Kurosawa, himself of Samurai lineage, apologising to generations of farmers for the behaviour of Samurai. What is worse is that the offer of rice in return for military service is insulting to a Samurai warrior. On the surface of things, Samurai are necessary enemies of this particular strategy, although the village elder has already perceived this and has instructed them to find ‘hungry Samurai’. In the event they encounter Kambai, who they mistakenly believe has undertaken to rescue a hostage in return for three balls of rice. In fact, the connection is purely fortuitous — Kambai asks for the rice as a ruse to gain the confidence of the criminal. However, Kambai’s own sense of honour leads him to accept their offer, and he in turn recruits five other Samurai, plus a tag-along who pretends to be a Samurai.
Kambai is the essential ally in The Seven Samurai, and perfectly illustrates strategy as a series of negotiations. In the Magnificent Seven, the role of Kambai is played by a man called Chris (Yul Brynner). Notably, the power relationships are quite different in the two films. In the Seven Samurai, the striation of 17th century Japanese society and the poverty of the farmers makes the role of Kambai as intermediary essential for any kind of success. In the Magnificent Seven, the villagers have real money, and the role of Chris is more advisory, and as a kind of recruitment agent.