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The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age
The New York Times Bestelling guide for managers and executives.
Introducing the new, realistic loyalty pact between employer and employee.
The employer-employee relationship is broken, and managers face a seemingly impossible dilemma: the old model of guaranteed long-term employment no longer works in a business environment defined by continuous change, but neither does a system in which every employee acts like a free agent.
The solution? Stop thinking of employees as either family or as free agents. Think of them instead as allies .
As a manager you want your employees to help transform the company for the future. And your employees want the company to help transform their careers for the long term. But this win-win scenario will happen only if both sides trust each other enough to commit to mutual investment and mutual benefit. Sadly, trust in the business world is hovering at an all-time low.
We can rebuild that lost trust with straight talk that recognizes the realities of the modern economy. So, paradoxically, the alliance begins with managers acknowledging that great employees might leave the company, and with employees being honest about their own career aspirations.
By putting this new alliance at the heart of your talent management strategy, you’ll not only bring back trust, you’ll be able to recruit and retain the entrepreneurial individuals you need to adapt to a fast-changing world.
These individuals, flexible, creative, and with a bias toward action, thrive when they’re on a specific “tour of duty”—when they have a mission that’s mutually beneficial to employee and company that can be completed in a realistic period of time.
Coauthored by the founder of LinkedIn, this bold but practical guide for managers and executives will give you the tools you need to recruit, manage, and retain the kind of employees who will make your company thrive in today’s world of constant innovation and fast-paced change.
Introducing the new, realistic loyalty pact between employer and employee.
The employer-employee relationship is broken, and managers face a seemingly impossible dilemma: the old model of guaranteed long-term employment no longer works in a business environment defined by continuous change, but neither does a system in which every employee acts like a free agent.
The solution? Stop thinking of employees as either family or as free agents. Think of them instead as allies .
As a manager you want your employees to help transform the company for the future. And your employees want the company to help transform their careers for the long term. But this win-win scenario will happen only if both sides trust each other enough to commit to mutual investment and mutual benefit. Sadly, trust in the business world is hovering at an all-time low.
We can rebuild that lost trust with straight talk that recognizes the realities of the modern economy. So, paradoxically, the alliance begins with managers acknowledging that great employees might leave the company, and with employees being honest about their own career aspirations.
By putting this new alliance at the heart of your talent management strategy, you’ll not only bring back trust, you’ll be able to recruit and retain the entrepreneurial individuals you need to adapt to a fast-changing world.
These individuals, flexible, creative, and with a bias toward action, thrive when they’re on a specific “tour of duty”—when they have a mission that’s mutually beneficial to employee and company that can be completed in a realistic period of time.
Coauthored by the founder of LinkedIn, this bold but practical guide for managers and executives will give you the tools you need to recruit, manage, and retain the kind of employees who will make your company thrive in today’s world of constant innovation and fast-paced change.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published July 8, 2014
325 people are currently reading
5729 people want to read
About the author
Reid Hoffman
28 books922 followersAn accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Reid Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses, including LinkedIn and PayPal. He possesses a unique understanding of consumer behavior and the dynamics of viral businesses, as well as deep experience in driving companies from the earliest stages through periods of explosive, “blitzscale” growth. Ranging from LinkedIn to PayPal, from Airbnb to Convoy to Facebook, he invests in businesses with network effects and collaborates on building their product ecosystems.
Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service, in 2003. LinkedIn is thriving with more than 700 million members around the world and a diversified revenue model that includes subscriptions, advertising, and software licensing. He led LinkedIn through its first four years and to profitability as Chief Executive Officer. In 2016 LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft, and he became a board member of Microsoft.
Prior to LinkedIn, Hoffman served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was also a founding board member.
Hoffman joined Greylock in 2009. He focuses on building products that can reach hundreds of millions of participants and businesses that have network effects. He currently serves on the boards of Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Joby, Microsoft, Nauto, Neeva, and a few early stage companies still in stealth. In addition, he serves on a number of not-for-profit boards, including Kiva, Endeavor, CZ Biohub, New America, Berggruen Institute, Opportunity@Work, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change. Prior to joining Greylock, he invested personally in many influential Internet companies, including Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, and Zynga.
In 2022, Hoffman co-founded Inflection AI, an artificial intelligence company that aims to create software products that make it easier for humans to communicate with computers.
Hoffman is the host of Masters of Scale, an original podcast series and the first American media program to commit to a 50-50 gender balance for featured guests as well as Possible, a podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. He is the co-author of five best-selling books: The Startup of You, The Alliance, Blitzscaling, Masters of Scale, and Impromptu.
Hoffman earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a bachelor’s degree with distinction in symbolic systems from Stanford University. In 2010 he was the recipient of an SD Forum Visionary Award and named a Henry Crown Fellow by The Aspen Institute. In 2012, he was honored by the Martin Luther King center’s Salute to Greatness Award. Also in 2012, he received the David Packard Medal of Achievement from TechAmerica and an honorary doctor of law from Babson University. In 2017, he was appointed as a CBE by her majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oulu, an international science university, in 2020. In 2022, Reid received Vanderbilt University's prestigious Nichols-Chancellor's Medal and delivered the Graduates Day address to the Class of 2022 on the importance and power of friendship.
Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service, in 2003. LinkedIn is thriving with more than 700 million members around the world and a diversified revenue model that includes subscriptions, advertising, and software licensing. He led LinkedIn through its first four years and to profitability as Chief Executive Officer. In 2016 LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft, and he became a board member of Microsoft.
Prior to LinkedIn, Hoffman served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was also a founding board member.
Hoffman joined Greylock in 2009. He focuses on building products that can reach hundreds of millions of participants and businesses that have network effects. He currently serves on the boards of Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Joby, Microsoft, Nauto, Neeva, and a few early stage companies still in stealth. In addition, he serves on a number of not-for-profit boards, including Kiva, Endeavor, CZ Biohub, New America, Berggruen Institute, Opportunity@Work, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change. Prior to joining Greylock, he invested personally in many influential Internet companies, including Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, and Zynga.
In 2022, Hoffman co-founded Inflection AI, an artificial intelligence company that aims to create software products that make it easier for humans to communicate with computers.
Hoffman is the host of Masters of Scale, an original podcast series and the first American media program to commit to a 50-50 gender balance for featured guests as well as Possible, a podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. He is the co-author of five best-selling books: The Startup of You, The Alliance, Blitzscaling, Masters of Scale, and Impromptu.
Hoffman earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a bachelor’s degree with distinction in symbolic systems from Stanford University. In 2010 he was the recipient of an SD Forum Visionary Award and named a Henry Crown Fellow by The Aspen Institute. In 2012, he was honored by the Martin Luther King center’s Salute to Greatness Award. Also in 2012, he received the David Packard Medal of Achievement from TechAmerica and an honorary doctor of law from Babson University. In 2017, he was appointed as a CBE by her majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oulu, an international science university, in 2020. In 2022, Reid received Vanderbilt University's prestigious Nichols-Chancellor's Medal and delivered the Graduates Day address to the Class of 2022 on the importance and power of friendship.
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July 28, 2014
Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh have written an outstanding and important book called The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age. I encourage you to get a copy right now and read it this weekend. If you are a CEO of a company Foundry Group has invested in, there’s no need to buy it – I just ordered 100 of them and they will be in your hands soon.
Reid and Ben previously wrote a book called The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career. It is also excellent. It’s the first book students read during the course I teach with Brad Bernthal at CU Boulder called “The Philosophy of Entrepreneurship.”
Reid is well known as the co-founder of LinkedIn, a partner at Greylock, an angel investor in many successful companies including Facebook and Twitter, and one of the kingpins of the PayPal Mafia. I got to know Reid while serving on the Zynga board with him and he’s as advertised – a deep thinker, extraordinary strategist, and incredibly supportive partner to an entrepreneur. Most importantly, it’s very clear that the notion of building a strong personal brand (discussed in The Start-up of You) and approaching employee / employer pact with commitment and a very long term view (discussed in The Alliance) is a core part of his value system.
Ben, while less well known, has been Reid’s chief of staff for the past few years. He’s also a successful entrepreneur, having started Comcate, his first business, at age 14. Amy and I have become extremely close friends with Ben over the last decade and we view him as part of our extended family.
I don’t really know Chris, but by association he has a huge amount of credibility with me.
The Alliance starts out by punching you in the face to get your attention. It differentiates between the notion of “company as a family” and “company as a team.” The punch in the face is the idea that you can’t fire a family member (“Susy, you aren’t succeeding at doing your homework, so you are fired as our daughter”) so while “we are a family” is a time-worn metaphor for a company, it’s a poor one. Reid, Ben, and Chris suggest the notion of a team instead. And, instead of permanent employment, they use the concept of a tour of duty to redefine the employer / employee relationship from “lifetime employment” to “a well-defined and clearly stated pact between employer and employee.”
The book, and the concept, is tightly written and extremely readable. The book is an appropriate length – there’s no fat here – just substance. I particularly loved the chapter on Network Intelligence which describes an approach to have every person in your company use their network to get market and competitive intelligence for the company. In addition to the concept, the authors give us piles of examples, including some from Greylock on how to execute a brilliant market intelligence strategy.
When reflecting on The Alliance, I feel that Foundry Group works this way at a meta-level. If you extend “Foundry Group” to include all of the entities that we have co-founded, you quickly add in Techstars, FG Angels, FG Press, SRS|Acquiom, Gluecon, Defrag, and a few others. Then, add in the 70 companies we’ve invested in via Foundry Group and the 20 or so we’ve invested in through FG Angels. Then the 30 or so VC funds we are investors in. And the thousands of companies we are indirect investors in. That’s a big team, configured in lots of different structures, all over the US. Any member in good standing of any of these entities is a long term member of our team, regardless of what they do. Anytime one of the reaches out to me, I’ll always try to help any way I can. Sure – we aren’t perfect at this, but we try hard, and are going to keep trying even harder in the future.
Reid, Ben, and Chris – thanks for writing this book. I hope, in 20 years, it’s as important as The Organization Man by William Whyte was in its day.
Reid and Ben previously wrote a book called The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career. It is also excellent. It’s the first book students read during the course I teach with Brad Bernthal at CU Boulder called “The Philosophy of Entrepreneurship.”
Reid is well known as the co-founder of LinkedIn, a partner at Greylock, an angel investor in many successful companies including Facebook and Twitter, and one of the kingpins of the PayPal Mafia. I got to know Reid while serving on the Zynga board with him and he’s as advertised – a deep thinker, extraordinary strategist, and incredibly supportive partner to an entrepreneur. Most importantly, it’s very clear that the notion of building a strong personal brand (discussed in The Start-up of You) and approaching employee / employer pact with commitment and a very long term view (discussed in The Alliance) is a core part of his value system.
Ben, while less well known, has been Reid’s chief of staff for the past few years. He’s also a successful entrepreneur, having started Comcate, his first business, at age 14. Amy and I have become extremely close friends with Ben over the last decade and we view him as part of our extended family.
I don’t really know Chris, but by association he has a huge amount of credibility with me.
The Alliance starts out by punching you in the face to get your attention. It differentiates between the notion of “company as a family” and “company as a team.” The punch in the face is the idea that you can’t fire a family member (“Susy, you aren’t succeeding at doing your homework, so you are fired as our daughter”) so while “we are a family” is a time-worn metaphor for a company, it’s a poor one. Reid, Ben, and Chris suggest the notion of a team instead. And, instead of permanent employment, they use the concept of a tour of duty to redefine the employer / employee relationship from “lifetime employment” to “a well-defined and clearly stated pact between employer and employee.”
The book, and the concept, is tightly written and extremely readable. The book is an appropriate length – there’s no fat here – just substance. I particularly loved the chapter on Network Intelligence which describes an approach to have every person in your company use their network to get market and competitive intelligence for the company. In addition to the concept, the authors give us piles of examples, including some from Greylock on how to execute a brilliant market intelligence strategy.
When reflecting on The Alliance, I feel that Foundry Group works this way at a meta-level. If you extend “Foundry Group” to include all of the entities that we have co-founded, you quickly add in Techstars, FG Angels, FG Press, SRS|Acquiom, Gluecon, Defrag, and a few others. Then, add in the 70 companies we’ve invested in via Foundry Group and the 20 or so we’ve invested in through FG Angels. Then the 30 or so VC funds we are investors in. And the thousands of companies we are indirect investors in. That’s a big team, configured in lots of different structures, all over the US. Any member in good standing of any of these entities is a long term member of our team, regardless of what they do. Anytime one of the reaches out to me, I’ll always try to help any way I can. Sure – we aren’t perfect at this, but we try hard, and are going to keep trying even harder in the future.
Reid, Ben, and Chris – thanks for writing this book. I hope, in 20 years, it’s as important as The Organization Man by William Whyte was in its day.
July 18, 2016
Chapter 1: Employment in the Networked Age
• The fundamental disconnect of modern employment: the employer-employee relationship is based on a dishonest conversation
• The goal of The Alliance is to provide a framework for moving from a transactional to a relation approach. Think of employment as an alliance: a mutually beneficial deal, with explicit terms, between independent players.
• Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix: "We're a team, not a family" "Which of my people, if they me they were leaving for a similar job at a peer company, would I fight hard to keep at Nexflix? The other people should get a generous severance now so we can open a slot to try to find a star for that role."
• The idea of a sports team defines how we work together, and toward what purpose, but the idea of a family still has relevance because it defines how we treat each other -- with compassion, appreciation, and respect.
Chapter 2: Tours of Duty
• The phrase tour of duty comes from the military, where it refers to a single specific assignment or deployment: focus on accomplishing a specific, finite mission.
• Employees don't need your permission to switch companies, and if you try to assert that right, they'll simply make their move behind your back.
• Types of tours:
• Rotational: Structured program of finite duration, usually aimed at entry-level employees. The purpose is to allow both parties to assess the potential long-term fit between employer and employee.
• Transformational: The focus is less on a fixed time period and more on the completion of a specific mission. Employees will have the opportunity to transform both their career and the company.
• Foundational: The company has become the foundation of the person's career and even life, and the employee has become one of the foundations of the company.
• Every employee relationship should be bidirectional in nature; it should be clear how the employee benefits and how the employer benefits.
Chapter 3: Building Alignment in a Tour of Duty
It is likely that employees will not spend their entire life at your company anymore. As a result,alignment in this context means that managers/employees should explicitly seek and highlight the commonality between the company's purpose and the employee's career purpose and values. In other words, seek for mutually beneficial experiences that will provide value to both parties.
• Your task is to build alignment with regard to the employee's specific mission objective, not their entire life.
• Who do you look at and say, "I want to be her someday?"
• If you find a colleague has a difficult time articulating their values: ask a colleague to jot down the names of three people they admire. Then, next to each name, list three qualities they most admire about each person (nine total). Finally, rank these qualities in order of importance.
• "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing" - Theodore Roosevelt
• Interview Question: Tell me in three to five minutes your life's journey and how it led you to be the person you are today... touching on major moments in your life that helped define who you are and your approach to business and leadership, such as dealign with adverse experiences like a bully, the death of a loved one, or major decisions that went wrong." Interestingly, when used as an interview question, the interviewer goes first to set the example and to model vulnerability for the candidate.
Chapter 4: Implementing Transformational Tours of Duty
The goal is to select a mission objective that helps the company, but also provides an opportunity for the employee to grow.
• At LinkedIn, for example, managers ask, "How will the company be transformed by this employee?"
• Losing a valued employee is one of a manager's greatest fears. But it happens, and for many valid reasons. No company has ever been able to retain all of its top performers in perpetuity.
• The alliance is ethical, not legal, and the tour of duty is an informal agreement to respect and honor a key relationship.
• The great management theorist Peter Drucker put it best when he wrote, "What gets measured, gets managed." If you carefully manage leading indicators such as mission alignment, an employee's ability to gather network intelligence, or general satisfaction during tours of duty check-ins, you'll successfully manage lagging indicators such as employee retention or engagement.
Chapter 5: Employee Network Intelligence
Employees are invaluable resources to bring customer and market intelligence back into the product team and ultimately to make better products. The intelligence leveraged by your organization's people is the most effective way for your organization to engage with and learn from the outside world.
• "The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose." Bill Gates
• When faced with a difficult problem, our natural tendency is to assemble all of the smartest people into a room. But you can't rely on the information circulating in the brains of your current employees. There are more smart people outside your company than inside it.
• An individual's career accelerates with the strength of his or her network - I^We
• Great story about how employee network intelligence about how PayPal employees learned the strategy of their competitors. Billpoint, a competitor, believed that a deep banking relationship with Wells Fargo provided an overwhelming advantage over PayPal. Contrary to Billpoint's belief, companies and users on eBay did not consider a deep banking relationship relevant. They placed far greater value on ease of use, especially in email communications. Never heard of Billpoint, that's because eBay won.
• Network intelligence should be tapped ethically - no need for costumes, dumpster diving, fake email accounts.
• During PayPal's direct conversations with folks at Billpoint, never did Billpoint employees stop to ask the same questions to PayPal's employees: How they viewed the market.
Chapter 6: Implementing Network Intelligence
• Many companies, especially public ones, expend their precious energy playing defense, trying to keep their employees from spilling the beans.
• Here are some questions to ask:
• How is a key technology trend (e.g., "Big Data") shaping our industry?
• What are other companies (and competitors) doing that's working or not working?
• What are our customers' sentiments, what is motivating them, and how have they changed?
• Who are the key people in our industry that we should engage with?
• What are the hiring trends in our industry?
• Who are the new entrants in the marketplace and which of them are doing interesting things?
• Social strategy: Social media engagement can translate into bottom line rules. For example, the average HubSpot employee has 6.2 times the number of connections than the average LinkedIn member, and those employees share, comment, or like updates at eight times the average rate.
• Interesting person fund: money earmarked for coffees and meals with interesting people in their network.
• HubSpot's Learning Meals: enable's employees to take anyone out for a meal as long as the employee thinks they'll learn something. LinkedIn has a similar policy.
• Mox, a Seattle-based marketing software start-up, encourages its employees to engage in speaking opportunities. If you get a speaking spot at an event, Moz will cover the travel and accommodations.
• At LinkedIn, employees can use any room, space, or facility on the corporate campus for any external group. *If you're not actively taking what employees learn from their networks and brining that knowledge back into the company to help solve challenges, its as if you're flying millions of miles a year without bothering to attach your frequent flyer number to the reservations.
Chapter 7: Corporate Alumni Networks
• LinkedIn, Tesla, YouTube, Yelp, Yammer, SpaceX. What do all of these companies have in common? All of these companies were founded by alumni from PayPal.
• When you launch an alumni network, the precise return is hard to measure, and might not show up for years. Just as uncertainty doesn't equal risky, unpredictably doesn't equal low value.
• "dig the well before you get thirsty" i.e., Why wait until you have a dire need before you develop a skill? Why wait until you are riddled with disease before you begin looking after your health? Why wait until you find yourself penniless before you begin to build a part-time income? Why wait until you find yourself without friends before you learn networking skills?
• You cannot wait until you are thirsty to begin digging a well
• If you do, you will likely die of thirst before you get the water you need
• You must prepare ahead of time, before the need arises
Chapter 8: Implementing an Alumni Network
• Lifetime employment is out, but lifetime alliance is in.
Conclusion:
• A business without long-term thinking is a business that's unable to invest in the future. A business without long-term thinking is a business that's unable to invest in the future. And a business that isn't investing in tomorrow's opportunities and technologies is a company already in the process of dying.
There were three central themes to the book: 1) tours of duty 2) employee network intelligence 3) alumni networks
Many companies are not intentionally about their employees careers and values and thus when a new opportunity comes along, the employee will make the change. With the understanding that employees will not work at one place forever, it is to the benefit of companies to make alliances with employees during their tenure and afterwards. To promote alliances, the book discusses three specific types of "tours of duties" or purposeful missions: rotational (new employees), transformational (personal and company growth), and rotational (long-term investment). For moral of the story is to be intentional, honest, and opportunistic with employees’ careers and values. Otherwise, in a networked age, employees will leave at the first opportunity of a "tour of duty" somewhere else.
Perhaps a cross section between social engineering and customer development, employee network intelligence is a way of leveraging the knowledge that the vast network that your employees have. Not leveraging this knowledge intentionally is like flying 250,000 miles in a year and failing to enter in a frequent flier number.
• The fundamental disconnect of modern employment: the employer-employee relationship is based on a dishonest conversation
• The goal of The Alliance is to provide a framework for moving from a transactional to a relation approach. Think of employment as an alliance: a mutually beneficial deal, with explicit terms, between independent players.
• Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix: "We're a team, not a family" "Which of my people, if they me they were leaving for a similar job at a peer company, would I fight hard to keep at Nexflix? The other people should get a generous severance now so we can open a slot to try to find a star for that role."
• The idea of a sports team defines how we work together, and toward what purpose, but the idea of a family still has relevance because it defines how we treat each other -- with compassion, appreciation, and respect.
Chapter 2: Tours of Duty
• The phrase tour of duty comes from the military, where it refers to a single specific assignment or deployment: focus on accomplishing a specific, finite mission.
• Employees don't need your permission to switch companies, and if you try to assert that right, they'll simply make their move behind your back.
• Types of tours:
• Rotational: Structured program of finite duration, usually aimed at entry-level employees. The purpose is to allow both parties to assess the potential long-term fit between employer and employee.
• Transformational: The focus is less on a fixed time period and more on the completion of a specific mission. Employees will have the opportunity to transform both their career and the company.
• Foundational: The company has become the foundation of the person's career and even life, and the employee has become one of the foundations of the company.
• Every employee relationship should be bidirectional in nature; it should be clear how the employee benefits and how the employer benefits.
Chapter 3: Building Alignment in a Tour of Duty
It is likely that employees will not spend their entire life at your company anymore. As a result,alignment in this context means that managers/employees should explicitly seek and highlight the commonality between the company's purpose and the employee's career purpose and values. In other words, seek for mutually beneficial experiences that will provide value to both parties.
• Your task is to build alignment with regard to the employee's specific mission objective, not their entire life.
• Who do you look at and say, "I want to be her someday?"
• If you find a colleague has a difficult time articulating their values: ask a colleague to jot down the names of three people they admire. Then, next to each name, list three qualities they most admire about each person (nine total). Finally, rank these qualities in order of importance.
• "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing" - Theodore Roosevelt
• Interview Question: Tell me in three to five minutes your life's journey and how it led you to be the person you are today... touching on major moments in your life that helped define who you are and your approach to business and leadership, such as dealign with adverse experiences like a bully, the death of a loved one, or major decisions that went wrong." Interestingly, when used as an interview question, the interviewer goes first to set the example and to model vulnerability for the candidate.
Chapter 4: Implementing Transformational Tours of Duty
The goal is to select a mission objective that helps the company, but also provides an opportunity for the employee to grow.
• At LinkedIn, for example, managers ask, "How will the company be transformed by this employee?"
• Losing a valued employee is one of a manager's greatest fears. But it happens, and for many valid reasons. No company has ever been able to retain all of its top performers in perpetuity.
• The alliance is ethical, not legal, and the tour of duty is an informal agreement to respect and honor a key relationship.
• The great management theorist Peter Drucker put it best when he wrote, "What gets measured, gets managed." If you carefully manage leading indicators such as mission alignment, an employee's ability to gather network intelligence, or general satisfaction during tours of duty check-ins, you'll successfully manage lagging indicators such as employee retention or engagement.
Chapter 5: Employee Network Intelligence
Employees are invaluable resources to bring customer and market intelligence back into the product team and ultimately to make better products. The intelligence leveraged by your organization's people is the most effective way for your organization to engage with and learn from the outside world.
• "The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose." Bill Gates
• When faced with a difficult problem, our natural tendency is to assemble all of the smartest people into a room. But you can't rely on the information circulating in the brains of your current employees. There are more smart people outside your company than inside it.
• An individual's career accelerates with the strength of his or her network - I^We
• Great story about how employee network intelligence about how PayPal employees learned the strategy of their competitors. Billpoint, a competitor, believed that a deep banking relationship with Wells Fargo provided an overwhelming advantage over PayPal. Contrary to Billpoint's belief, companies and users on eBay did not consider a deep banking relationship relevant. They placed far greater value on ease of use, especially in email communications. Never heard of Billpoint, that's because eBay won.
• Network intelligence should be tapped ethically - no need for costumes, dumpster diving, fake email accounts.
• During PayPal's direct conversations with folks at Billpoint, never did Billpoint employees stop to ask the same questions to PayPal's employees: How they viewed the market.
Chapter 6: Implementing Network Intelligence
• Many companies, especially public ones, expend their precious energy playing defense, trying to keep their employees from spilling the beans.
• Here are some questions to ask:
• How is a key technology trend (e.g., "Big Data") shaping our industry?
• What are other companies (and competitors) doing that's working or not working?
• What are our customers' sentiments, what is motivating them, and how have they changed?
• Who are the key people in our industry that we should engage with?
• What are the hiring trends in our industry?
• Who are the new entrants in the marketplace and which of them are doing interesting things?
• Social strategy: Social media engagement can translate into bottom line rules. For example, the average HubSpot employee has 6.2 times the number of connections than the average LinkedIn member, and those employees share, comment, or like updates at eight times the average rate.
• Interesting person fund: money earmarked for coffees and meals with interesting people in their network.
• HubSpot's Learning Meals: enable's employees to take anyone out for a meal as long as the employee thinks they'll learn something. LinkedIn has a similar policy.
• Mox, a Seattle-based marketing software start-up, encourages its employees to engage in speaking opportunities. If you get a speaking spot at an event, Moz will cover the travel and accommodations.
• At LinkedIn, employees can use any room, space, or facility on the corporate campus for any external group. *If you're not actively taking what employees learn from their networks and brining that knowledge back into the company to help solve challenges, its as if you're flying millions of miles a year without bothering to attach your frequent flyer number to the reservations.
Chapter 7: Corporate Alumni Networks
• LinkedIn, Tesla, YouTube, Yelp, Yammer, SpaceX. What do all of these companies have in common? All of these companies were founded by alumni from PayPal.
• When you launch an alumni network, the precise return is hard to measure, and might not show up for years. Just as uncertainty doesn't equal risky, unpredictably doesn't equal low value.
• "dig the well before you get thirsty" i.e., Why wait until you have a dire need before you develop a skill? Why wait until you are riddled with disease before you begin looking after your health? Why wait until you find yourself penniless before you begin to build a part-time income? Why wait until you find yourself without friends before you learn networking skills?
• You cannot wait until you are thirsty to begin digging a well
• If you do, you will likely die of thirst before you get the water you need
• You must prepare ahead of time, before the need arises
Chapter 8: Implementing an Alumni Network
• Lifetime employment is out, but lifetime alliance is in.
Conclusion:
• A business without long-term thinking is a business that's unable to invest in the future. A business without long-term thinking is a business that's unable to invest in the future. And a business that isn't investing in tomorrow's opportunities and technologies is a company already in the process of dying.
There were three central themes to the book: 1) tours of duty 2) employee network intelligence 3) alumni networks
Many companies are not intentionally about their employees careers and values and thus when a new opportunity comes along, the employee will make the change. With the understanding that employees will not work at one place forever, it is to the benefit of companies to make alliances with employees during their tenure and afterwards. To promote alliances, the book discusses three specific types of "tours of duties" or purposeful missions: rotational (new employees), transformational (personal and company growth), and rotational (long-term investment). For moral of the story is to be intentional, honest, and opportunistic with employees’ careers and values. Otherwise, in a networked age, employees will leave at the first opportunity of a "tour of duty" somewhere else.
Perhaps a cross section between social engineering and customer development, employee network intelligence is a way of leveraging the knowledge that the vast network that your employees have. Not leveraging this knowledge intentionally is like flying 250,000 miles in a year and failing to enter in a frequent flier number.
July 21, 2014
It's mainly content marketing of Linkedin wrapped in a book form. However, there is quite relevant information on human resource management. It helps understand how big corporations should manage entrepreneurial employees. This could have been great HBR article
December 27, 2022
This is exactly the book you would expect to be written by the co-founder of LinkedIn and a couple other Silicon Valley execs. It's basically an advertisement for LinkedIn (both the company and the platform), and there's undoubtedly a lot of self-interest in promoting the benefits of networking and connections as cornerstones for a successful career. And the book is primarily targeted at the Silicon Valley set who believe they have the brightest talent, brilliant leaders, and cutting-edge employee development programs. All of the boxes on my expectations checklist were marked off.
However, once you accept all that and dive into the content of the book, there are a few helpful nuggets in here. The first part of the book focuses on offering "tours of duty" to employees in order to create a mutually beneficial alliance between employee and employer. Rather than plugging a new employee into a standard role, the manager and employee can create a tour of duty which is focused on a specific mission or project with defined objectives and a set time frame. This allows the employer and employee to assess fit at the company, and both parties benefit from the arrangement (e.g. employee develops skills and company increases revenue).
I like the idea of tours of duty, but I do think this concept is a long way off from corporate America. From my experience, the corporate bureaucracy of org charts is currently not set up to handle this level of agility, and standard manager training programs are usually not robust enough to prepare all managers for the unapologetically direct and shifting conversations required for these arrangements. I'm not saying it can't be done, but change takes time (and often a really long time in certain companies/industries). However, I did get a couple takeaways that I can apply on a smaller scale. Whenever I've had a special project that requires a resource for 6 - 12 months, the standard practice is to hire an external consultant. The tour of duty concept is a good reminder to look internally first to see if anyone would really benefit from this experience, and managers should try to be a little creative in shifting around work to create this opportunity for someone.
Also, in Appendix A, there is a Sample Statement of Alliance that employees and managers are supposed to create in tandem and sign before any tour of duty to clearly outline expectations and mutual benefits. While I'm not expecting to get a green light for a formal tour of duty program anytime soon, this document is a good tool I can use with my team members when I ask them to lead a major project. It will facilitate an open conversation on both sides of what manager and employee are expecting and how each is going to contribute to the success of the project, which will help drive engagement and accountability.
The last couple chapters of the book discuss the need for companies to support corporate alumni groups for employees who have moved on. I whole-heartedly agree with this idea, and I think it is severely underutilized by companies today. While no one likes it when an employee moves on, there are so many benefits to keeping connected with alumni, such as boomerang hires, referrals, access to industry knowledge, and increased engagement for current employees. A number of companies currently have alumni networks, but they are mostly driven by the alumni themselves. The book advocates that companies should take a more active role in cultivating these networks - it often requires only a small monetary investment but could result in immense benefits.
This was a quick read at around 100 pages, so the time investment was definitely reasonable for what I got out of it. If these ideas are of interest to you, I wouldn't recommend paying full price for the book, but it's worth a read if you come across it as a daily deal or through a workplace bookshare.
However, once you accept all that and dive into the content of the book, there are a few helpful nuggets in here. The first part of the book focuses on offering "tours of duty" to employees in order to create a mutually beneficial alliance between employee and employer. Rather than plugging a new employee into a standard role, the manager and employee can create a tour of duty which is focused on a specific mission or project with defined objectives and a set time frame. This allows the employer and employee to assess fit at the company, and both parties benefit from the arrangement (e.g. employee develops skills and company increases revenue).
I like the idea of tours of duty, but I do think this concept is a long way off from corporate America. From my experience, the corporate bureaucracy of org charts is currently not set up to handle this level of agility, and standard manager training programs are usually not robust enough to prepare all managers for the unapologetically direct and shifting conversations required for these arrangements. I'm not saying it can't be done, but change takes time (and often a really long time in certain companies/industries). However, I did get a couple takeaways that I can apply on a smaller scale. Whenever I've had a special project that requires a resource for 6 - 12 months, the standard practice is to hire an external consultant. The tour of duty concept is a good reminder to look internally first to see if anyone would really benefit from this experience, and managers should try to be a little creative in shifting around work to create this opportunity for someone.
Also, in Appendix A, there is a Sample Statement of Alliance that employees and managers are supposed to create in tandem and sign before any tour of duty to clearly outline expectations and mutual benefits. While I'm not expecting to get a green light for a formal tour of duty program anytime soon, this document is a good tool I can use with my team members when I ask them to lead a major project. It will facilitate an open conversation on both sides of what manager and employee are expecting and how each is going to contribute to the success of the project, which will help drive engagement and accountability.
The last couple chapters of the book discuss the need for companies to support corporate alumni groups for employees who have moved on. I whole-heartedly agree with this idea, and I think it is severely underutilized by companies today. While no one likes it when an employee moves on, there are so many benefits to keeping connected with alumni, such as boomerang hires, referrals, access to industry knowledge, and increased engagement for current employees. A number of companies currently have alumni networks, but they are mostly driven by the alumni themselves. The book advocates that companies should take a more active role in cultivating these networks - it often requires only a small monetary investment but could result in immense benefits.
This was a quick read at around 100 pages, so the time investment was definitely reasonable for what I got out of it. If these ideas are of interest to you, I wouldn't recommend paying full price for the book, but it's worth a read if you come across it as a daily deal or through a workplace bookshare.
August 27, 2022
It’s always satisfying to read a book from somebody who gets it. This book isn’t full of fluff or self aggrandizing stories to fill pages. I’m definitely overly deferential to the ideas presented because of who Reid is and what he has accomplished. But I figure if you’re going to cut corners on intellectual rigor somewhere I’m OK with it being on the Halo-Effect. I think it’s more likely than not he knows what he’s talking about.
Anyways this book basically describes how white-collar work is changing and how to conceptually think about it. Along with some tips for HR/employers to build an alumni network. It’s a great book for anyone working or interested in working at an established tech company or prestige industry (consulting, law, medicine, IB). On the flip side, my roommate is a welder and I think this book would be a complete waste of time for him.
Now one of the interesting parallels to “the tour of duty“ concept is this continuation of a kind of ‘professional college’ model. Go in, pay your dues, emerge a changed person. I know a lot of consulting companies present themselves as places to work for several years post college while you “build skills” and figure out what the hell you’re going to do with your life. The concept this book proposes is that you (as an employer) continue that model indefinitely to extract maximum value from employees. You can talk about it upfront and exchange future networking rewards and career advancement for current labor. It’s a nifty way to shift the conversation away from comp and benefits. It's also proven to be an effective strategy at getting motivated, intelligent people to come work for you. That might sound a bit negative, but I’m not sure this strategy is either good or bad. It’s simply the next evolution of what non-gig work looks like in 2020. It’s trying to put up some tangible way to commodify and capitalize on “career capital” where employees build up an impressive resume before going off to work on whatever soul fulfilling work they really want to impact the world with.
However, I know from many conversations I’ve had with peers in their mid to late 20s that this framework of not wanting to reduce optionality or close down potential paths leads to a lot of frustration and a feeling of being “perpetually in waiting.” It’s a sense of building a lot of career capital but with no gratifying objects to spend it on. It’s become a structure of control for companies who need to retain and attract bright young talent. That part does seem insidious. I’m cautious and a bit concerned of where it leads in 10 years. It seems that more often than not, people who compromise and take the "safe" career path end up with golden handcuffs. I don't see many people go from MBB to Teach for America. Why not just go do what you want to while you’re young and full of energy? Career capital is cute, but it isn't going to pay the rent in a recession.
Anyways. Great book if you ignore the cynicism I just projected onto it. And maybe we will avoid all the recession stuff like Jerome Powell has promised.
Anyways this book basically describes how white-collar work is changing and how to conceptually think about it. Along with some tips for HR/employers to build an alumni network. It’s a great book for anyone working or interested in working at an established tech company or prestige industry (consulting, law, medicine, IB). On the flip side, my roommate is a welder and I think this book would be a complete waste of time for him.
Now one of the interesting parallels to “the tour of duty“ concept is this continuation of a kind of ‘professional college’ model. Go in, pay your dues, emerge a changed person. I know a lot of consulting companies present themselves as places to work for several years post college while you “build skills” and figure out what the hell you’re going to do with your life. The concept this book proposes is that you (as an employer) continue that model indefinitely to extract maximum value from employees. You can talk about it upfront and exchange future networking rewards and career advancement for current labor. It’s a nifty way to shift the conversation away from comp and benefits. It's also proven to be an effective strategy at getting motivated, intelligent people to come work for you. That might sound a bit negative, but I’m not sure this strategy is either good or bad. It’s simply the next evolution of what non-gig work looks like in 2020. It’s trying to put up some tangible way to commodify and capitalize on “career capital” where employees build up an impressive resume before going off to work on whatever soul fulfilling work they really want to impact the world with.
However, I know from many conversations I’ve had with peers in their mid to late 20s that this framework of not wanting to reduce optionality or close down potential paths leads to a lot of frustration and a feeling of being “perpetually in waiting.” It’s a sense of building a lot of career capital but with no gratifying objects to spend it on. It’s become a structure of control for companies who need to retain and attract bright young talent. That part does seem insidious. I’m cautious and a bit concerned of where it leads in 10 years. It seems that more often than not, people who compromise and take the "safe" career path end up with golden handcuffs. I don't see many people go from MBB to Teach for America. Why not just go do what you want to while you’re young and full of energy? Career capital is cute, but it isn't going to pay the rent in a recession.
Anyways. Great book if you ignore the cynicism I just projected onto it. And maybe we will avoid all the recession stuff like Jerome Powell has promised.
April 4, 2023
This is a simple but straightforward book on working with employee. The « alliance » concept to me sounded as a development of the personal development plan because imho the PDP should have all the things in the tour of duty instrument.
I loved the option to have the alumni network - I don’t think here in Ukraine even the best companies fully use this instrument - I have not seen it in my former companies.
I loved the option to have the alumni network - I don’t think here in Ukraine even the best companies fully use this instrument - I have not seen it in my former companies.
August 11, 2019
I was afraid that this book is too short to convey a deep message and it managed to say even less than I expected, also the focus on is a bit too much on LinkedIn (feels like content marketing article). The alliance approach only works with specific type of employees (entrepreneur-minded) and is not suited for mainstream organization (i.e. employee network intelligence, corporate alumni networks). Several concepts were inspired by the employee development philosophy of Jack Welch (General Electric). The most valuable point for me was the concept of looking at employee development in direct win-win approach: how does the job help the employee to fulfill his/her professional development goals and make him/her more valuable on the job market (not that many other books don't cover this concept but this book did it in a specific way).
The base method for employee development is tours of duty, there are various types of those:
• Rotational: Structured program of finite duration, usually aimed at entry-level employees. The purpose is to allow both parties to assess the potential long-term fit between employer and employee.
• Transformational: The focus is less on a fixed time period and more on the completion of a specific mission. Employees will have the opportunity to transform both their career and the company.
• Foundational: The company has become the foundation of the person's career and even life, and the employee has become one of the foundations of the company.
Every employee relationship should be bidirectional in nature; it should be clear how the employee benefits and how the employer benefits.
Creating employee-specific mission objectives. If you find a colleague has a difficult time articulating their values: ask a colleague to jot down the names of three people they admire. Then, next to each name, list three qualities they most admire about each person (nine total). Finally, rank these qualities in order of importance.
Interview Question: "Tell me in three to five minutes your life's journey and how it led you to be the person you are today... touching on major moments in your life that helped define who you are and your approach to business and leadership, such as dealing with adverse experiences like a bully, the death of a loved one, or major decisions that went wrong." When used as an interview question, the interviewer goes first to set the example and to model vulnerability for the candidate.
“Psychologist Arthur Aron of SUNY Stony Brook discovered that asking participants in an experiment to share their deepest feelings and beliefs for a single hour could generate the same sense of trust and intimacy that typically takes weeks, months, or years to form.”
The base method for employee development is tours of duty, there are various types of those:
• Rotational: Structured program of finite duration, usually aimed at entry-level employees. The purpose is to allow both parties to assess the potential long-term fit between employer and employee.
• Transformational: The focus is less on a fixed time period and more on the completion of a specific mission. Employees will have the opportunity to transform both their career and the company.
• Foundational: The company has become the foundation of the person's career and even life, and the employee has become one of the foundations of the company.
Every employee relationship should be bidirectional in nature; it should be clear how the employee benefits and how the employer benefits.
Creating employee-specific mission objectives. If you find a colleague has a difficult time articulating their values: ask a colleague to jot down the names of three people they admire. Then, next to each name, list three qualities they most admire about each person (nine total). Finally, rank these qualities in order of importance.
Interview Question: "Tell me in three to five minutes your life's journey and how it led you to be the person you are today... touching on major moments in your life that helped define who you are and your approach to business and leadership, such as dealing with adverse experiences like a bully, the death of a loved one, or major decisions that went wrong." When used as an interview question, the interviewer goes first to set the example and to model vulnerability for the candidate.
“Psychologist Arthur Aron of SUNY Stony Brook discovered that asking participants in an experiment to share their deepest feelings and beliefs for a single hour could generate the same sense of trust and intimacy that typically takes weeks, months, or years to form.”
April 5, 2021
There’s no wonder that a LinkedIn co-founder will promote the benefits of a network and the advantage of hiring a well-networked talent so expect a lot on this topic. The book focuses on two main ideas:
- build networks around the organisation by leveraging the networks of your employees;
- have an honest and open relationship with your employees about their career journey so that the relationship survives even after their employment status ends.
What I liked about the book is the proposal to treat employees fair, to not assume that “we are a family”, because as the authors mention, rather than a family, a company looks more like a sports team - we get together to reach a goal with all of us having to contribute at our best. So instead of getting stuck on the idea that every (good) employee should be motivated to stay and retire from the company, to be more comfortable in understanding that it’s not how the world works nowadays and great people will only stay as long as they find exciting opportunities. So why not be open about it from the start? In this context they introduce the concept of “employees as allies” as the collaboration between a person and a company can take many forms (ex: a former employee might become a future client). With that on the table the conversation becomes more open and honest.
The book gives a more modern and nuanced perspective over talent management and careers talking about 3 types of “tours of duty” one can take. This is a nice refresh, but I would say that besides the rebranding the changes they propose in approach focus on a pretty small pool of scenarios: mostly high potential candidates who can work various projects in a company that can allow for people to take over new assignments.
A “transformational tour of duty”, where they focus most in the book, is basically an assignment with a clear outcome, that can last from a few months to a few years, depending on the goal.
All in all, the book is easy to read and gives you a new perspective to analize your internal practices and see if there are nuances that you can change for the better.
- build networks around the organisation by leveraging the networks of your employees;
- have an honest and open relationship with your employees about their career journey so that the relationship survives even after their employment status ends.
What I liked about the book is the proposal to treat employees fair, to not assume that “we are a family”, because as the authors mention, rather than a family, a company looks more like a sports team - we get together to reach a goal with all of us having to contribute at our best. So instead of getting stuck on the idea that every (good) employee should be motivated to stay and retire from the company, to be more comfortable in understanding that it’s not how the world works nowadays and great people will only stay as long as they find exciting opportunities. So why not be open about it from the start? In this context they introduce the concept of “employees as allies” as the collaboration between a person and a company can take many forms (ex: a former employee might become a future client). With that on the table the conversation becomes more open and honest.
The book gives a more modern and nuanced perspective over talent management and careers talking about 3 types of “tours of duty” one can take. This is a nice refresh, but I would say that besides the rebranding the changes they propose in approach focus on a pretty small pool of scenarios: mostly high potential candidates who can work various projects in a company that can allow for people to take over new assignments.
A “transformational tour of duty”, where they focus most in the book, is basically an assignment with a clear outcome, that can last from a few months to a few years, depending on the goal.
All in all, the book is easy to read and gives you a new perspective to analize your internal practices and see if there are nuances that you can change for the better.
May 20, 2015
Uneven, stilted writing style. At times it sounds as if it was transcribed from a conversation verbatim. I don't trust companies to have the gumption to even approach this framework until a saturation point is hit and there is no choice but to find a mechanism to promote employee retention. Given the results-oriented nature of management and companies, having the foresight and courage to actively do career development and care about employee values seems bizarre and naive...and that is a good thing.
While I don't trust companies to execute on this, simply broadening the discussion seems valuable. As an employee, I only recently have felt agency to direct energies to involving my place of employ in what I envision is my future. I never considered because I expect "no" as the default. Maybe they,would be inclined to say "yes" with this framework. At the same time, this uncharted water for everyone. What if the jobs people are lack the know-how and support structure to even start?
The pseudo-contract is a little weird and awkward. I would prefer it to be more abstract. It might be fine as-is, but is a shift mentally...
While I don't trust companies to execute on this, simply broadening the discussion seems valuable. As an employee, I only recently have felt agency to direct energies to involving my place of employ in what I envision is my future. I never considered because I expect "no" as the default. Maybe they,would be inclined to say "yes" with this framework. At the same time, this uncharted water for everyone. What if the jobs people are lack the know-how and support structure to even start?
The pseudo-contract is a little weird and awkward. I would prefer it to be more abstract. It might be fine as-is, but is a shift mentally...
August 12, 2014
Required reading for all "Human Resources"/Talent Acquisition professionals and for companies who really wants to have a 21st Century workplace. The book is very practical and I believe should be required on any HR training.
September 8, 2014
Really liked this book especially given that i'm doing a lot of hiring and managing of people. A good framework for how to set career and employee goals.
April 4, 2017
Alianța reprezintă balanța dintre manager și angajat care au ca loc de întâlnire compania. Managerul este interesat de progresul companiei, angajatul își urmărește progresul personal, aceste interese se întâlnesc la mijloc deoarece comunicarea este esențială. Compania generează oportunități pentru angajat, îi oferă misiuni pentru a putea progresa. Dacă un angajat va dori să plece este benefic să rămână în relații cordiale cu toată lumea, o părere pozitivă niciodată nu trece neobservată. Un om eficient și valoros trebuie păstrat de un manager. Cartea ilustrează modul cum angajații secolului 21 sunt un fel de agenți independenți, ei pot pleca oriunde, oricând, însă nu toți își doresc asta, contează foarte mult cum managerul îi prezintă mediul în care își vor desfășura viitoarea activitate. Atmosfera cu cât este mai plăcută, mai caldă cu atât de motivat și vesel o să fie angajatul.
February 16, 2019
I think the concept of “tours of duty” is really interesting and provides mutual benefits for employee and employer.
February 18, 2020
Great read on relationships with key employees!
September 4, 2021
The book describes how employees are no longer working in an age of guaranteed or lifetime employment, but the relationship between companies and employees need not be transactional and mercenary. It suggests “tours of duty” as the solution, where managers and employees agree on a mission and length that benefits both parties, and an alumni network that continues the relationship even after the tenure.
April 21, 2017
A realistic outlook into today's employer-employee relationship, emphasizing the end of life-time employment and introducing "life-time alliance" instead, creating a win-win solution for both parties.
August 21, 2014
In The Alliance, Hoffman et al make a convincing case for updating hiring best practices to reflect the ever-changing reality of the modern world. Hoffman explains that the current generation of workers no longer expects to spend their careers tied to a single employer or industry. Instead of pensions the current generation is focused on personal development. The Alliance suggests that employers and employees enter into mutually agreed upon "tours of duty" designed to accomplish very specific goals and then reassess the relationship once the tour has been completed.
Hoffman's suggestions resonate with me as they share many similarities with my first job out of school. During the hiring process my soon-to-be boss clearly outlined his vision for the position he was filling and the potential career benefits. He offered to put me on a "fast-track" of sorts, bypassing the typical introductory years of Public Accounting which are generally marked by hours of paper-copying and tying out ledgers. I quickly found myself working on mission-critical analyses and being invited to high-level strategy sessions, experiences unavailable to my peers. My boss ended up with a highly motivated employee eager to avoid becoming a stereotypical accountant and I was able to become a financial executive years earlier than would be considered standard, a true win-win.
I highly recommend this book for anyone involved in hiring or establishing company culture. It represents the beginning of what I hope will be the progressive shedding of mid-20th century employment practices in favor of more modern sensibilities.
Hoffman's suggestions resonate with me as they share many similarities with my first job out of school. During the hiring process my soon-to-be boss clearly outlined his vision for the position he was filling and the potential career benefits. He offered to put me on a "fast-track" of sorts, bypassing the typical introductory years of Public Accounting which are generally marked by hours of paper-copying and tying out ledgers. I quickly found myself working on mission-critical analyses and being invited to high-level strategy sessions, experiences unavailable to my peers. My boss ended up with a highly motivated employee eager to avoid becoming a stereotypical accountant and I was able to become a financial executive years earlier than would be considered standard, a true win-win.
I highly recommend this book for anyone involved in hiring or establishing company culture. It represents the beginning of what I hope will be the progressive shedding of mid-20th century employment practices in favor of more modern sensibilities.
April 23, 2015
'The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age' by Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh is a fresh look at what it looks like to be employed in the 21st century, where there is no guaranteed employment and employees want to act like free agents. What is a company to do?
The book creates a framework for employment in this age by looking at how some companies are doing this, primarily, LinkedIn. Discussed are tours of duty, where an employee and company decide on frameworks that hopefully lead to longer term alliances. Companies are to encourage employees to mine their social networks for the companies behalf. The book finishes by talking about those employees who do move on and how the company could include them in an alumni network.
It's an interesting, collaborative approach to an employee/employer relationship. I think these ideas would probably work better for larger organizations, but I'll still probably recommend it to my companies' HR department. This was an interesting book and I'm glad I got a chance to read it.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Harvard Business Review Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to read such a fascinating ebook.
The book creates a framework for employment in this age by looking at how some companies are doing this, primarily, LinkedIn. Discussed are tours of duty, where an employee and company decide on frameworks that hopefully lead to longer term alliances. Companies are to encourage employees to mine their social networks for the companies behalf. The book finishes by talking about those employees who do move on and how the company could include them in an alumni network.
It's an interesting, collaborative approach to an employee/employer relationship. I think these ideas would probably work better for larger organizations, but I'll still probably recommend it to my companies' HR department. This was an interesting book and I'm glad I got a chance to read it.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Harvard Business Review Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to read such a fascinating ebook.
June 9, 2016
I heard Ben Casnocha give a keynote speech at a conference and was intrigued by his idea on creating employment alliances. Basically, it seems like he is calling for greater transparency and authenticity of relationships in the working world.
I enjoyed the book and think the concept has merit. My criticism is that I don't think it can apply well outside the business world and white collar jobs (which It might not be meant to.) I also think the book itself was trying to stretch a pretty straightforward concept into one too many chapters. There are only so many ways to explain the same thing. And while I appreciated the examples from how LinkedIn as a company executes on their alliances and the concepts introduced in the book, I think it would have been more impactful for the authors to find examples of non Silicon Valley (and even non tech companies) employing these concepts. I like that they were trying to demonstrate how they (the authors) are practicing what they preach, but I think it ended up seeming like a bit of a LinkedIn commercial.
I'm glad to have read it and intend to apply this concept with clients and students I work with.
I enjoyed the book and think the concept has merit. My criticism is that I don't think it can apply well outside the business world and white collar jobs (which It might not be meant to.) I also think the book itself was trying to stretch a pretty straightforward concept into one too many chapters. There are only so many ways to explain the same thing. And while I appreciated the examples from how LinkedIn as a company executes on their alliances and the concepts introduced in the book, I think it would have been more impactful for the authors to find examples of non Silicon Valley (and even non tech companies) employing these concepts. I like that they were trying to demonstrate how they (the authors) are practicing what they preach, but I think it ended up seeming like a bit of a LinkedIn commercial.
I'm glad to have read it and intend to apply this concept with clients and students I work with.
October 15, 2015
This book reads like a TedTalk painfully stretched out into 155-pages of spacious lettering. It could've been half as long and just as effective. In addition, the authors weave in spotless success stories which lack emotional strength, of folks who've moved up and around the ladder at Linkedin. The thought process of someone working through struggle or a tough decision would have been far more interesting and potentially more powerful as a teaching tool.
That aside, the book is a great intro to a managerial mindset and breezes through the following suggestions for improving the company/employee relationship:
- Define relationship through "tours of duty"
- Align values through mission statements
- Encourage network building outside the office
- Build alumni networks
I wouldn't purchase this book but it might be worth borrowing from the library as a quick read if you're interested in any of the points above.
That aside, the book is a great intro to a managerial mindset and breezes through the following suggestions for improving the company/employee relationship:
- Define relationship through "tours of duty"
- Align values through mission statements
- Encourage network building outside the office
- Build alumni networks
I wouldn't purchase this book but it might be worth borrowing from the library as a quick read if you're interested in any of the points above.
January 12, 2017
Overall, this is a really good read. As a manager I feel like this book has given me really great tools for conversations with people on my team. It has also given me a vision for what I'd like for conversations with my leadership to look like.
All too often companies are stuck in old "lifetime employment" ways of thinking. They don't realize that the world has changed dramatically. If they did, and they adopt ideas like the ones presented here then they should be more able to attract and retain great talent, and more successfully face market forces.
I'd rate the first 75% of this book as a 5, but I found the shift to "alumni networks" in the last portion of the book to not be as interesting/valuable.
All too often companies are stuck in old "lifetime employment" ways of thinking. They don't realize that the world has changed dramatically. If they did, and they adopt ideas like the ones presented here then they should be more able to attract and retain great talent, and more successfully face market forces.
I'd rate the first 75% of this book as a 5, but I found the shift to "alumni networks" in the last portion of the book to not be as interesting/valuable.
July 30, 2014
These days the idea of "lifelong employment" seems quaint and antiquated. Employment relationships simply don't work that way anymore. "The Alliance" starts from this point of view and provides a clear, focused, and practical strategy to build mutually beneficial employee employer relationships. The strategy has three parts: a "Tour of Duty" approach to career planning, a focus on leveraging the mutual benefit of "Network Intelligence", and evolving from a "lifelong employment" view to "lifelong alliance" view through a formal "Alumni Network". The principles underlying this strategy ring true and align well with my experience managing employee employer relationships over the past decade.
July 22, 2014
I saw Hoffman on Charlie Rose the other night talking about this book and decided to read it. This book is a really great perspective on the paradigm shift that is happening with employee/company relationships. Hoffman describes these new relationships as 'Alliances,' and discusses how LinkedIn thinks of 'Jobs' as 'Tours of Duty' where employees spend shorter periods of time working in roles to hone one skill set or another that helps them develop along their desired career path. I would highly recommend for anyone who is interested in leadership & management related reading.
February 10, 2015
This book, will change the prism by which you look at employer-employee relations. As a business owner and manager I find that getting in groups and talking about how people "don't stay long these days" does nothing to change that reality. This book, helps you to embrace that reality and actually gives you wants to prep for it, and ultimately empower employees. It also gives tons of examples of how to put that new reality to work for you, get on it, whether you are an employee, a manager, or an executive this book should prove valuable.
May 4, 2016
I read this book for a management course and found it to be very insightful. This is a good read for managers who are dealing with turnover as well as trying to cultivate talent. We are no longer working in fields that offer lifelong employment opportunities- and that's alright. Whether you are being managed or managing someone else- make sure you make the most of your time together, ask or take the training offered to get you that next job, create a network of individuates you can count on, keep working to be the best you to really get what you need out of your job(s) and life.
January 18, 2021
This book is very snacky—it was clearly designed that way. Oftentimes books like this spend too much time fleshing out valuable concepts in a vacuum, and in doing so they eat away at the value that they bring to the table. But here, the authors avoid this common misstep; each idea corresponds to a tangible story of its implementation. Good stuff.
I give it 3 stars in accordance with the rating scale suggestion, "liked it." The Alliance is definitely not exhilarating, but if you're interested in this genre and looking for a quick read, I would reccommend adding it to your list.
I give it 3 stars in accordance with the rating scale suggestion, "liked it." The Alliance is definitely not exhilarating, but if you're interested in this genre and looking for a quick read, I would reccommend adding it to your list.
June 3, 2015
Another great forward thinking book about the way networking, branding, and work are changing in our world. A must read for any manager or employer who wants to remain competitive in any real way. Companies that create an alliance with employees (and many companies already do in some way) will easily win over companies that don't.
July 28, 2014
Really impressed with the concepts in this book. I hadn't quite thought about careers with this specific framework. It is instructive though in helping to think through both staffing and career planning. The tour of duty concept and the focus on outcomes for the company and the employee are great places to spend time thinking about.
July 25, 2016
Practical guide for new work models that encourages companies and individuals to invest in each other realizing that the lifetime employment of the Industrial Age is over. I would summarize that the book has 3 main ideas - Tours of duty, Network Intelligence and Corporate Alumni and it comes a bit watered with examples from LinkedIn.
August 19, 2014
Good book, interesting take on how employment has changed from staying with one company for a lifetime career to now how people change companies several times, and sometimes "boomerang" back to a company for a repeat.
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