Alloying - Mental Model
It’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Have you ever worked with someone and produced something better than if you had worked on your own?
One person’s strength fills another’s gap and the result is much better. Your individual traits support each other.
Alloying is blending together different metals to get an alloy which takes the best features from the original metals used. For example, we combine copper and tin to get bronze, and we combine iron with carbon to get steel — one of the most important building materials.
Steel gave us skyscrapers. We, as humanity, alloy 1.6 billion tons of steel annually. But alloying isn’t just about metal — it’s a powerful mental model to think about people and ideas.
Your Limits
Do you know your limitations?
When I write, I focus more on theory than on practice. My friend, on the other hand, is highly practical in his writing. When we worked on writing articles together we were able to produce a great blend of these two characteristics. That’s an example of alloying in action.
Alloying is a powerful analogy for creating something that can't be achieved from a single perspective.
My friend and I went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat (I Became a Monk for 10 Days so You Don't Have To), and later, when we shared our experiences with mutual friends, the stories became more detailed — just by blending our often completely different perspectives.
We can overcome our limitations by cooperating with people who fill our gaps — and learn a lot in the process.
Better Teams
Many people think the manager’s job is to push the team to work harder.
But if you look at it through the lens of alloying, you see that the manager is aiming to engineer the right alloy of personalities, skills, and perspectives.
Successful sports teams show this clearly. Every player contributes to the final result and complements the others. For example, in football, defenders, midfielders, and attackers all work together to form a strong, united team.
It's not an easy task for the manager to make sure that your team is well-balanced. Just remembering about that and making sure that you know their strengths and weaknesses — can lead to amazing results.
Dangers
A good alloy works well but if the mix hasn’t been tested, it can cause problems.
Just like real metals, a team can break under pressure if the combination isn’t right.
Even one wrong ingredient can ruin the final result. These risks should be taken into account.
Summary
"None of us is as smart as all of us."
— Ken Blanchard
Great teams are alloys. They’re forged from a combination of skills, stronger together than any one part, and ideally connected by a shared purpose.
When we want to achieve amazing results. It's good to remember that we don't have to do everything alone.
Think for a while:
Where in your life do you observe alloying?
How can you apply this concept more intentionally?
Thanks for reading!
— Michał
Post Notes
Discover Weekly — Shoutouts
Articles that might help you explore new perspectives, which I’ve read recently:
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