“Can’t We All Get Along”

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Collaboration as a Way of Organization Life

Competencies: collaboration, team building/development, visionary leadership, entrepreneurial leadership, sales leadership, managing relationships, influence/negotiation, driving strategic direction, strategic planning, building strategic relationships

Who benefits: the book is written at the organizational level; however there is something for all employees

Consultant Usage: organizational consultants, executive coaches, may be useful to those who coach employees involved in 360-degree feedback

What’s it about? I picked up this just published book thinking I was getting a new take on interpersonal skills.  There is some of that in the book, but this is large scale cooperation, with a distinct emphasis on cross organization cooperation. 

Author Dan Sanker has written Collaborate: The Art of We (a little play on words with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War?).  Sanker begins by defining collaboration “as the synergistic relationship formed when two or more entities working together produce something much greater than the sum of their individual abilities and contributions. Effective collaboration can produce better-quality projects, make more efficient teams, create healthier environments, greatly increase productivity, and enable more growth in organizations than ever could have existed before the concentrated emphasis was placed on collaboration.”

What impresses me about this definition is how he distinguishes between collaboration as a rather “all in” process and resource sharing such as networking, coordination and cooperation which typically favors one side more than the other and is often more unidirectional. 

I also liked his early example in the book of something both familiar and simple: The Happy Meals collaboration between Disney and McDonald’s.  The two companies are equal partners before, during and after a new Disney release.  And apparently a whopping (or is it Whopper) 20% of all McDonald’s sales are from Happy Meals.

Again, in the name of simplicity, I would like to share some of the Chapter and Section headlines to give you an idea of where the book is going and help you gage your interest:

What Collaboration Is and Isn’t
     -If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Join ‘em
     -Internal Collaboration
     -Collaboration with Competitors
     -Collaboration with Customers
Risks of Collaboration
Stages of Collaboration
The Role of Technology and Social Media in Collaboration

For a more in depth look the interpersonal side of collaboration, consider Michael Schrage’s oldie but goodie Shared Minds.

Catch you later.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.