Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Build Common Ground, and Reap Big Results

Morten Hansen

May 2009 · Harvard Business Press

About this ebook

In Collaboration, author Morten Hansen takes aim at what many leaders inherently know: in today's competitive environment, companywide collaboration is an imperative for successful strategy execution, yet the sought-after synergies are rarely, if ever, realized. In fact, most cross-unit collaborative efforts end up wasting time, money, and resources. How can managers avoid the costly traps of collaboration and instead start getting the results they need?

In this book, Hansen shows managers how to get collaboration right through "disciplined collaboration"-- a practical framework and set of tools managers can use to:

· Assess when--and when not--to pursue collaboration across units to achieve goals

· Identify and overcome the four barriers to collaboration

· Get people to buy into the larger picture, even when they own only a small piece of it

· Be a "T-Shaped Manager," collaborating across divisions while still working deeply in your own unit

· Create networks across the organization that are not large, but nimble and effective

Based on the author's long-running research, in-depth case studies, and company interviews, Collaboration delivers practical advice and tools to help your organization collaborate--for real results.

Ratings and reviews

I took a management consulting class with Morten Hansen at UC Berkeley and we used this book as the text book. His lecture style and writing style are very approachable and engaging and most importantly, very easy to understand. He has years of experiences in management consulting and teaching experiences at Harvard Business School and UC Berkeley. This book tackled four problems that are not uncommon in companies and big corporations. The four barriers to successful collaboration are: -not invented here syndrome -hoarding -search problems -transfer issues. I hope it will help some leaders to make better decisions.