The ideal company will both recognize that the author is in control of the book, and become your most trusted ally as you make decisions. (bookworks.com)
At most, we may gather the opinions of a few trusted allies on a given issue and then assume that everyone agrees with us. (ascd.org)
All those explanations are possibilities, but what is interesting here is that play - biting generally happens between trusted allies. (scientificamerican.com)