CHAPTER 1
DESERIALIZATION
The Culture of Collaboration requires deserialization. When work is serialized, something is missing. Think of an orchestra. Suppose each violinist finished his or her part before each flutist began. We would be listening to a series of individual performances rather than a concert. The same is true whether we’re designing airplanes and cars, producing visual effects or developing disease treatment plans.
Serialized work is like a performance in which instruments play one at a time rather than together. The music is there, but it’s not a concert. Achieving harmony in developing products and services, improving processes and making decisions requires co-creation in real time. Yet too often we squander opportunities to create value by waiting for the email, the file, the text, the tweet, the meeting or for somebody else’s delayed input. Simply put, if we want to create value, we reject the pass-along approach to work. Instead, deserialize and Do It Now Together!
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CHAPTER 2
THE CULTURE OF COLLABORATION
INTERNAL COMPETITION: THE COMPANY KILLER
Star culture perpetuates an “every man for himself” approach. In internally-competitive cultures, fear dominates as people worry whether their names appear on the elimination lists or whether they can beat out colleagues for recognition and promotion. These cultures reward individualism rather than collaboration. Why would you trust Joe and share your ideas with him? He will steal your concepts so that he can get promoted over you. Such cut-throat cultures often extend beyond the enterprise to relations with business partners. Without understanding the need for partners to succeed, companies with competitive cultures may negotiate too aggressively or even unethically and sacrifice partner trust.
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CHAPTER 3
THE COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT
Why do so many successful business plans begin on napkins? Why are so many companies born in bars and restaurants? Informality! We often think more creatively and collaboratively when we get away from cubicles, offices, home offices and conference rooms. When we’re relaxed, it can feel like the sky’s the limit. We can brainstorm more freely when surrounded by the trappings of relaxation such as beer taps and sports memorabilia. In traditional office environments, we are more likely to feel constrained. When we want to collaborate but it’s not happening, sometimes the issue is the environment, one of the Eleven Cultural Elements of Collaboration.
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CHAPTER 4
LIFESTYLES AND WORK STYLES
CREATING VALUE THROUGH COLLABORATIVE GROUP SESSIONS
Meetings typically involve presentation and discussion. Then participants retreat to their own workspaces to write reports or do follow up work that is then discussed at yet another meeting. In contrast, the CGS is about creating value on the spot. CGS participants design products and services, create marketing plans, write news releases, develop human resources policies, produce budgets, adjust production schedules and develop presentations. In short, a meeting has no work product while a CGS does.
Toyota uses collaborative group sessions for new vehicle design—and the sessions are much more than traditional meetings...
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CHAPTER 5
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS BEGINS IN THE CLASSROOM
At Nueva School, much of the learning is co-created by students and teacher. The teacher’s role is to provoke inquiry and curiosity rather than deliver content to “thirsty ears.” The philosophy is that the students must discover the answers for themselves, because the teachers don’t have the answers. This process breaks down the traditional barriers between the roles of student and teacher. The Nueva experience is also one of decentralized authority with flattened hierarchy, collaboration and design thinking baked into the experience. Students learn to approach a challenge with “humility to understand a problem” rather than as know-it-alls.
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CHAPTER 6
COLLABORATING WITH ROBOTS AND INTELLIGENT AGENTS
The word robot makes some people uncomfortable. Our minds may jump to machines replacing humans. Yet the impact of robotics depends on whether the technology substitutes for us or compliments our work. An increasing number of robots collaborate with people. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have sparked a new category of robots that can see, learn, think and react to their surroundings. Think of them as software-driven co-workers.
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CHAPTER 8
THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF TRUST AND SECURITY
Trust mechanisms and middleware ensure security and protect privacy. Flowing across each trust model are “commodities” including identity and attributes necessary for authorization. Extended enterprises solve broader business-to-business trust issues in the federated trust arena. The federated model has particular implications for organizations striving to protect intellectual property. Because collaboration increasingly occurs among companies that are sometimes partners and at other times competitors, organizations must become increasingly vigilant about trust mechanisms.
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CHAPTER 9
COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP
WHEN A COLLABORATIVE LEADER SHOULD MAKE THE CALL
All decisions benefit from diverse input and collaboration. So when should a single leader make the final call? When a fundamental philosophical dichotomy exists making the group’s objectivity impossible. Think of creationism vs. evolution, Mac vs. PC or in Boeing’s case, CFRP vs aluminum alloy. Two distinct Boeing sub-groups with expertise in two different materials spent months researching how their particular material would perform for the 787’s fuselage. Each group represented the vested interests of different Boeing partners. If the entire group were to make the decision, the result would be a hung jury.
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CHAPTER 10
THE GLOBAL COLLABORATIVE ENTERPRISE
The old model of globalization has failed. That’s the model in which highly-skilled people in advanced economies are paid to think, design, and create while people in less-developed economies are paid to carry out orders in factories. This antiquated model of globalization is command-and-control.
In the global collaborative enterprise (GCE) model, people develop, design, engineer, customize, produce, assemble and market products and services concurrently around the world. Everybody is paid to think, and collaborative diversity—different regions, organizations and backgrounds—produces more valuable products and services.
