The Alliance

If you don't get it from the title then you haven't read the book "The Alliance: Managing Talent in the networked Age". This is kind of a sequel to the book "The start-up of You". There is one thing that I found reading the book was that I was able to relate to the book's main theme with my own career choices. Also this is one of the very few books I took and read the whole in one go (almost all-night read).

To cut the story short The Alliance is all about a new perspective to the Employer and Employee relationship that is mutually beneficial. The authors describe an Employee's career in terms of "Tours". A tour is an assingment that stretches between 2-5 years and that has definite postive outcome for the Employer and an equal fullfillment from the employee standpoint. In totality the tours are mutually agreed at the time of the start and reviewed towards the end to start a new tour. The tours in all likelihood will span different companies for an employee.

The book not only gives real world examples, but it also gives a generic framework upon which one can build an alliance. As with the previous book the professional network underpins the alliance too. The book is extemely relevent in the prevailing context where employers and employees are loosely bound. A very good read and the alliance if followed can definitely bring out a positive outcome and a long lasting alliance.

The book is authored by the linkedin fame Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh.

On a different note the book indeed gave me an idea to try out a fusion experiment for my next post :-)