Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results

Most leaders believe that companywide collaboration is essential for successful strategy execution. Yet while some collaborative efforts achieve spectacular synergies, many actually backfire—wasting time, money and resources. Why does this happen, and how can you avoid it?

In this frame-changing book, Morten T. Hansen argues that leaders sabotage themselves by promoting more collaboration in their organization. In their eagerness to get people to tear down silos and work in cross-unit teams, leaders often forget that the goal of collaboration is not collaboration itself, but results. Leaders need to think differently, focusing on what Hansen calls disciplined collaboration.

Collaboration distills more than a decade of award-winning research into a disciplined approach that helps managers separate good collaboration opportunities from bad ones. Drawing on rich examples from companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Apple, and BP, the book outlines proven techniques managers can use to achieve cost-savings, better innovation, and increased sales.