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Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results |  | Author: Morten T. Hansen
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Seller: mckenziebooks
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 22387
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 231
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 1422115151
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.4092
EAN: 9781422115152
ASIN: 1422115151
Publication Date: May 11, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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'. 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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
The definitive book on collaboration May 24, 2009
D. Sull (London, UK)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Increasing collaboration sits at or near the top of most executives' to-do list, and much has been wrttten about it. A search of amazon's business and investing books for the keyword "collaboration" turns up nearly 37,000 books. Why, you might ask, do we need another one? Hansen has not written "a" book about collaboration, he has written "the" book on the topic. Hansen's "Collaboration" makes a bold promise--to provide the definitive treatment of the topic. It delivers on that promise.
Hansen starts with fundamentals. Firms exist to create economic value (as well as to capture and sustain value into the future). In most business books, collaboration is unmoored from any consideration of economic value creation and treated as an inherent good. Hansen, in contrast, anchors his analysis in a hard-nosed economic analysis of when collaboration creates value, that includes not only a project's benefits, but also the costs of collaboration and the opportunity cost of foregoing alternatives. The author's analysis leads to counter-intuitive findings--not all collaboration is good and more is not better. His analysis slices through the fluff of so many books on collaboration and brings readers to the hard edges of value creation.
The book follows a clear structure. After framing collaboration in terms of its benefits, Hansen provides a systematic list of obstacles that inhibit cooperation in many firms. His list is the closest to a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive taxonomy of barriers that I have seen. Hansen also includes a diagnostic to help managers assess the specific barriers to cooperation that they face. The book then provides extremely practical steps to enhance coordination within a firm. It closes with reflections on the leadership traits required to foster collaboration. The writing is clear, and the examples--a mix of familiar and novel--illustrate Hansen's points to a tee.
Many business books fall short in the solutionons they offer, veering at one extreme into a long laundry list of superficial or obvious actions or at the other into a "one size fits all" solution ill-suited to the complexity of real world organizations. Hansen strikes just the right balance. He introduces three actions, that are non-obvious and eminently practical. Among his many useful suggestions, I found T-shaped management and the simple rules for nimble networks to be particularly powerful. Hansen clearly spends a great deal of time with managers in the trenches, and his deep knowledge of the real world shines through in the recommendations.
This book is "academic" in the best sense of the word. Hansen does not conjure up his conclusions based on superficial observation or war stories. Rather, he draws on a rich body of scholarly research on collaboration that stretches back over decades. This firm grounding in research gives the book a solidity and credibility that many business books lack. Although the author is too humble to trumpet his own achievements, much of the best research is his own. The book achieves both academic rigor and practical relevance.
What a great book! May 22, 2009
Frank Ketcham
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This is a clear and concise description of business collaboration and the associated advantages and pitfalls. In addition it provides a very clear set of principals to effectively manage this complex topic.
I think the issue has far greater importance than many people realize. Even as a student of business this book gave me a very important awareness of collaboration and strengthened my skill set.
I now realize there is far more to the dynamics of workplace collaboration and understand its enourmous impact on shareholder value.
"Molotov cocktail = weak ties and complex knowledge" July 8, 2009
P. Strayer (Oakland CA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Success in the 21st century will depend on collaboration to a much higher level than ever before.
This book is an excellent read on this much needed topic. Great narrative introduction, nicely done typology (a four quadrants framework) and practical tips. I especially enjoyed the strategems, like "Molotove cocktail = weak ties and complex knowledge." How true. Highly recommend. Everyone will learn something new - and useful.
How to formulate the underlying "management architecture" of collaboration May 25, 2009
Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As I began to read this book, I was reminded of several core concepts that Henry Chesbrough introduces in two of his books, first in Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (2003) and then in Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape (2006). As Chesbrough explains, "A business model performs two important functions: it creates value and it captures a portion of that value. It creates value by defining a series of activities from raw materials through to the final consumer that will yield a new product or service with value being added throughout the various activities. The business model captures value by establishing a unique resource, asset, or position within that series of activities, where the firm enjoys a competitive advantage."
Having thus established a frame-of-reference, Chesbrough continues: "An open business model uses this new division of innovation labor - both in the creation of value and in the capture of a portion of that value. Open models create value by leveraging many more ideas, due to their inclusion of a variety of external concepts. Open models can also enable greater value capture, by using a key asset, resource, or position not only in the company's own business model but also in other companies businesses." These comments are directly relevant to the material that Morten Hansen provides when explaining how "disciplined collaboration" can help to enable leaders to avoid or free themselves from various traps, create unity of commitment and effort, and "reap big results."
He asserts, "bad collaboration is worse than no collaboration." Why? Here are two of several reasons. First, bad collaboration never achieves the aforementioned "big results"; worse yet, bad collaboration makes good collaboration even more difficult to plan and then achieve. With regard to the "traps," Hansen identifies six in the first chapter and then suggests that there are three steps to disciplined collaboration. That is, the "the leadership practice of properly assessing when to collaborate (and when not to) and instilling in people both the willingness and the ability to collaborate when required." These are the three steps: (1) evaluate opportunities, and when making a decision, asking "Will we gain a great upside by collaborating?"; (2) identify barriers to collaboration, next asking "What are the barriers blocking people from collaborating well?"; and (3) tailor solutions to tear down the barriers, keeping in mind that different barriers require different solutions.
Throughout the book's first six chapters, Hansen explains how to formulate the underlying "management architecture" of collaboration, of disciplined collaboration, and then shifts his attention in the final chapter to explaining how his reader can "grow to be a collaborative leader" and to help others to do so also. As Chesbrough correctly suggests, it is imperative to have an "open" mindset, to make decisions that are guided and information by what Roger Martin characterizes (in The Opposable Mind) as "integrative" thinking. Those leaders who pursue disciplined collaboration "take their organizations to higher levels of performance...know where the opportunities for collaboration exist and when to say no to lesser projects...avoid the trap of overestimating benefits and overcollaborating...tear down the barriers that separate their employees...set powerful and unifying goals and forge a value of teamwork...cultivate T-shaped management...help employees build nimble, not bloated, networks...look within themselves and work to change their own leadership styles...And in cultivating collaboration in the right way, they set their people free to achieve great things not possible when they are divided."
Those who aspire to become such a leader are strongly encouraged to read this book so that Morten Hansen can collaborate with them on achieving that objective.
When and why collaboration is important February 16, 2010
Michael Fodor (Lyon, France)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Simplifying somewhat, management books fall into two categories: to the left are the academic ones, perhaps a tad heavy on the research and surely too heavy on the footnotes; to the right are the fluffier ones, where qualitative theories often rest on questionable facts.
Once in a while along comes a book that manages the fine balancing act. Collaboration is such an equilibrist. Why? Because author Morten Hansen contributes the proper ingredients for a thorough management book:
* 15 years of research on the topic in top companies,
* a strong analytical approach such as one would expect from a Boston Consulting Group alumnus,
* the academic touch in teaching readers and transferring knowledge,
* a dose of spiciness, with anecdotes and examples taken from private and public sectors.
What does the book cover? The focus is on how (large) companies can productively use collaboration among their `silos' in order to become more productive. After identifying the possible obstacles to collaboration, the book proposes a framework to develop a disciplined collaborative approach. The author is quick to point out that collaboration is no panacea. In fact in certain cases, it can prove counterproductive. For a synopsis of some of the relevant lessons, you can go to (...) and read five instalments on the book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
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