Good Neighbors Don’t Need Good Fences
Robert Frost was condemning fences when he wrote Mending Wall.* The most famous line in the poem reads, “Good fences make good neighbors.” But Frost didn’t say those words, his ignorant neighbor did.
The first line of the poem reads: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”
Later in the poem, Frost writes:
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself.”
Frost hints that savages mend walls. His neighbor is portrayed as ignorant. At one point, he comments:
“There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.”
In the end, the neighbor rejects the invitation and stubbornly persists, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Not Fences
Sun Tzu wrote: “…supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
Fence-builders experience struggle and stress. Seek connection before choosing barriers.
Alliances surpass fences.
Alliances
- Neutralize threats.
- Multiply impact.
- Expand capacity.
- Reduce unnecessary conflict.
- Maximize resources.
- Fill in gaps.
- Extend reach.
- Open doors.
Insecurity isolates. Confidence collaborates.
Build coalitions across departments, organizations, or even with competitors—when trust and alignment exist.
Ensure mutual benefit and unifying goals. Ask: What does success look like for both of us?
Be the Ally You Seek
Attract allies by being trustworthy, competent, and generous.
Invest in others’ success. Protect their interests. Keep your word.
Courage builds alliances. Savages build walls.
Who could benefit from your strengths?
How could someone else expand your capacity?
Five Ways to Turn Adversaries into Allies – Leadership Freak
Resource: Adversaries to Allies by Bob Burg
*Read Mending Wall
I had the incredible privilege of being a team member when our company transitioned from an R&D-based customer approach to a Production-Based approach. One slide from an internal presentation read, “They will call it collaboration, but it looks like we give up everything.”
The answer was to think through our expectations and prepare a clear case. If it’s not win/win, clarity in saying why is critically important. Clear communication brought down the fences, with “oh, we understand your point” moments.
Ken, thanks so much for sharing your experience! “Collaboration looking like giving up everything,” feels powerful. It’s easy for teams to feel protective of what they’ve built, especially when changing from an R&D focus to a production mindset. Your emphasis on setting clear expectations and finding genuine win/win scenarios is crucial.
What strategies did you find most effective in helping team members shift from a sense of “giving up” to collaboration?
Great question – the summary statement is “listen, listen, listen’ but not just to demonstrate listenership, to develop relevant, valuable responses, and there’s a lot to this. When asked for a four-hour response time to a down machine – far more demanding than an R&D requirement of 3-4 days! We needed to develop real response protocols and ask ourselves, Is this a satellite office? Is this a man on site? What are the costs and implications? We developed a consigned common spares stash that was housed at the customer site, but invoiced when the part came out of the box. For us, it was an openness to new thinking centered around customer goals. We did look to best practices of others – sometimes difficult to uncover…Of course, these things still needed to be profitable for us, so understanding costs was critical. It was quite mindset shift for a young company. We skinned our knees along the way. (but) It became a launch pad to larger markets.
Brilliant. Your strategy brings to mind the necessary connection between openness and listening. You can’t do one without the other.
Alan Alda said, “Real listening is willingness to let the other person change you.”
Organizations need a clear structure that defines which functions are responsible for specific tasks, along with communication channels that connect all parts of the business.
At the foundation, they require a mission, vision, and strategy that every employee understands and supports.
Similarly, neighbors need shared principles for how they’ll live alongside each other—and a relationship that allows for open, honest conversations when necessary.
Love your point about shared principles. Walls are necessary when one person believes in collaboration and the other believes in domination!
Re-read the poem.
I frequently do. It’s magnificent. Frost said the beauty of poetry is you can say one thing and mean another.
At one point he says,
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
I take it that Frost did not have and/or did not intend to have cattle or sheep on his property. The idea of a literal containment barrier, where needed, is supremely practical, be it physical or psychological.
Absolutely.
Interesting you mention cows. At one point he says:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
I realize you’re discussing this in a business sense, where the goal is usually collaboration. But there are times when good, sturdy fences and boundaries are necessary, in business, in public, and in private situations.
That’s the truth. Thanks, Theresa