MANDELA’S WAY ~ Lesson No. 9

KEEP YOUR RIVALS CLOSE

This is the ninth post in this series of 15 lessons taken from the book MANDELA'S WAY written by Richard Stengel

EXTRACT :" While Mandela often took his friends for granted , he never did the same with his rivals . While he often lost track of his colleagues , he never stopped tracking his opponents . You can trust your friends , in the sense that you roughly know that they will support you , and you can trust your enemies , in the sense that you assume that they will always oppose you . But your friendly rivals – they are the ones you need to keep tabs on . And Mandela always did . He did it discreetly . He would not have considered using intelligence services or private eyes to spy on his rivals . He knew that the best way to do that was not from a distance but from up close .

He knew there was no fail-safe method of pre-empting attacks by rivals . But he believed that by taking a rival under his wing , he would make him at least think twice about it . And then , at least , he would be close enough to see it coming ."