never burn a bridge!
Bridge is essential for crossing obstacles such as river, canal, railways, etc that come in the way of achieving progress forward movement in required direction! Why do we need bridges within an organization?
In every organization, tribes exist. Tribes silos in the form of various functional groups with focused target on a set of goals like sales, delivery, marketing, onsite team, offshore team, pre-sales, HR, etc. The purpose of formation hinges around achieving functional success typical inch wide mile deep expertise in an area that is very essential for success of the organization as a whole. But, for various reasons of self preservation, distinctive identity, emotional bondage/deep belonging, safety/security, self interest, comfort zone, etc., tribes tend to create a barrier for seamless integration required for inorganic growth and exponential progress path!
To be a dreamer doer within a company, it becomes critical to be a good tribal expert with solid foundation of value based relationship across tribes!! Since dreamer doer also belongs to one tribe or the other at a given time, building and maintaining functional bridges within and across tribes, is very important to succeed continuously and seamlessly!!
Right bridges help – cross over, move ahead and take people along to something meaningful for everyone be it a project, program, initiative, business pursuit, disruptive innovation,.. overall transformation into a happy zone!
One important step in this direction is to ensure that no bridge is burnt, at any step! As the famous saying goes –
The person, department or functional area you criticize today may be the ally you need tomorrow. Even if you are grinding gears with another part of the organization, never diminish, disparage or dehumanize people from another tribe. Remember the REAL OPPONENT is out there, not in here.
Most simple situation of burning bridges arise during hard fire fighting over a problem, a resource, a priority conflict, a project issue, a difference in understanding of a requirement, discussion on a way of working or something more simple/special!
Whatever be the push, pull or perspective, it is very useful to learn and adopt our own technique of fighting fires without burning bridges! It may be as simple as being scientific than defensive when pushed to a corner in a negotiation!
If not already done, I think its worth taking an oath Never to burn a bridge!, at any cost!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~