Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration (Businessweek Books) (Hardcover)

This book promises more than it delivers. Hargrove presents collaboration as some sort of breakthrough process when it is nothing more than a diverse group of motivated and creative people coming together to do something great. Sounds like teamwork to me but Hargrove dismisses that argument by telling us that "while all collaborations involve teamwork, not all teams are collaborative." "Most teams," he says, "are focused on routine work and doing the same thing better," while "...successful collaborative groups are made up of strange brews, of nascent combinations of people. Most teams, even multidisciplinary teams, tend to be fairly homogeneous."

The last time I looked "homogeneous" is not a word anyone would use to define a multidisciplinary team. And most teams, especially multidisciplinary teams, are not focused on "routine work." They are designing a new telecommunications systems, researching the next cure for cancer, developing an enhanced systems architecture, designing the layout for the factory of the future and understanding the planet of Mars---the very example cited by Hargrove. Hargrove dismisses teamwork but then goes on to present numerous examples of successful teams which he now calls collaborations.

Hargrove borrowed John Nasbit's research methodology of drawing a conclusion and then lining up a series of quotes from newspaper and magazine articles that report wonderful examples of successful teamwork (pardon me, I mean collaboration). In addition, there is not one quote or example that shows a failed attempt at collaboration. All of us learn from mistakes.

Let's assume you don't care about these points, you just want to know how to make teamwork or collaboration or whatever it's called, work in your organization. If you're looking for some great new insights, you won't find them here. But you will find two different lists that both seem to be saying the same old things with a few new age phrases. Hargrove's "recipe for creative collaboration"(pp. 33-38) includes such things as make a declaration of impossibility (which is nothing more than a broad goal), bring extraordinary combinations of people together, build a shared understood goal, do a "what's so" (just a factual analysis of the desired and current state) and identify what missing.

Then, later on, Hargrove presents "The Seven Building Blocks of Collaboration (p. 92). Once again, he talks about bringing together the right people, developing a shared goal, clarifying roles, lots of communication and lots of enthusiasm. This is good stuff, but we heard it all before in the literature of teamwork. And then there is the chapter on collaboration tools which is nothing more than warmed over tips from your favorite books on facilitation, meetings, management, conflict resolution and group dynamics.

A key ingredient that is missing from this formulation is the failure to address the issue of the environment for collaboration. Successful collaboration is more the result of a supportive culture, a flexible structure and encouraging systems and less about good facilitation skills and plenty of whiteboards. Most team failure comes from lack of support from the leadership of the organization, cultural norms that nurture competitive or selfish behavior and systems that do not reward team players.

Having dismissed teamwork allowed Hargrove to skip over a body of work that would have helped him understand these issues more completely. For example, Warren Bennis' Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration, presents six case studies of "Great Groups," Lipnack and Stamps' books, The TeamNet Factor, The Age of the Network and, most recently, Virtual Teams, all address collaboration across traditional boundaries, Designing Team-Based Organizations by Susan Mohrman, Susan Cohen and Allan Mohrman shows that it takes fundamental changes in the design and practices of organizations and my book, Cross-Functional Teams: Working With Allies, Enemies and Other Strangers, outlines specific strategies for developing and implementing successful "multidisciplinary" teams. This book was a selection of a book club of senior organizational development professionals who meet regularly to discuss new books. The group had high hopes for the book, but we were generally disappointed.

This is not teamwork 101 repackaged in new language. While Hargrove is good at synthesizing the best ideas and tools from the field into the book, he also sets forth a profound set of distinctions that helps people see themselves and others differently. Using stories of inspiring leaders like John Seeley Brown of Xerox PARC and Roger Ackerman of Corning to illustrate his points, he carves out new territory in the domain of "lateral leadership". He also helps us see and move into the arena of shared creation, rather than settling for compromise or bipartisan oneupsmanship (every member of a merger team should read it!).

What I found really compelling was how to address one of the biggest problems in organizations today - the massive resignation and disconnect that people have with the job they are performing. Hargrove's book lets us know how to tap into people's passions and interests in a way that moves them to action. He weaves tales of ordinary people doing incredible things, conveying to us the extraordinary possibilities for making a difference in our companies, communities and the world.

I was thoroughly inspired by this book - both in terms of its vision and the practical how to's that it offered. His conversational style and easy to read format helped me get his message quickly.

Great stories about how creative collaboration can lead to radical innovation in any business, political breakthroughs in the Middle East, transforming your local school system.

Our elected representatives in Washington could learn alot from the simple, powerful how to principles and techniques offered here!