Customer Reviews

Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration (Businessweek Books)

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Robert Hargrove, Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration, McGraw-Hill, 1998.

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.

As a long time software developer and Business Week subscriber, I succumbed to an assumption of quality based on the publisher and the book jacket endorsement by Eric Hahn. I was sorely disappointed.

I found the book to be a casually written, sloppily edited (an egregious example being a reference to the trademark Nike "Swish", rather than "Swoosh") collection of psycho- and business- babble filled with self-aggrandizing name-dropping.

Though some of the descriptions of organizations and their modes of collaboration were interesting, and some individuals quoted had useful things to say, the overall book left me with the feeling that it was hurriedly pushed out the door to try to take advantage of a growing interest in more effective multi-group collaboration. At best, a mediocre work.

Robert Hargrove presents a well-organized look at the world of creative collaboration. He argues that collaboration is the new paradigm in a world of change and complexity, as well as an effective management strategy. Hargrove provides a hands-on guide to becoming more collaborative and to organizing effective collaborative groups. In this lively, engaging book, Hargrove shows his familiarity with the latest management expertise. He draws on quotes and ideas from such authors as Margaret Wheatley, Peter Senge and Tom Peters. We [...] recommend this book to executives and managers who wish to facilitate collaborations.

I have found especially helpful the "7 building blocks", and "Tools" sections that have provided in a detailed format a framework and ideas to work with. The only negative part about this book is that the author overuses the example of Israel-Palestinian security talks. Examples from various disciplines and areas would improve and shape authors ideas much better by providing different perspectives.

I read Robert Hargrove's book on Masterful Coaching which focused on the individual, and prayed he would write one on collaboration. Not your cookie cutter approach to business books . .

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!

I was really inspired by this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who has dreams of creating something with others who may see the world differently. Hargrove paints a picture of what collaboration is that is very distinct and that is brought to life with some facinating examples--what he calls interludes. I especially liked the one on the Mid East Peace Accord and found it relevant to what is happening there now. Hargrove's guidelines for building a collaboration and for having collaborative conversations have been a lifesaver in the project that I am working on. They make a lot of sense and have been easy to apply. I can see why so many of the teams that I have worked on were not as successful as I would have liked. Thank you for a wonderful book that is fun to read and loaded with useful tools!

This book shows how the greatest breakthroughs of the twenty first century will not come from extraordinary people working in isolation but from bringing extraordinary, (creative) combinations of people together There are fascinating interludes of how creative collaboration has resulted in reaching goals and solving problems, previously thought difficult or impossible-the Internet, developed at Xerox Parc, and BBB&N,the Mars Project, the Israeli, Palestinian peace talks that resulted in the historic handshake on the White house lawn, and more. The book provides practical, step by step, universally applicable here's "how you do it" guidelines for helping any business organization build collaborative advantage. There's a simple recipe for creative collaboration as well as how to master the five phases of a collaborative conversation.

My basis is a long career as manager of cross organizational "first time" projects in technology and post graduate education. In his book, Mastering the art of Creative Collaboration, Robert Hargrove finally describes and labels the tools and techniques needed for success with that kind of projects.

It is all there :

- the determination to reach an "impossible goal" - the cooperation between "smart people with great ego's" - to find the best players for your team - to engage in partnership only if both sides see the spark - the (project) leader role as strategist and knowledge broker

and perhaps most important of all

- the need to hire people who are "passionate, creative and bold".

Thank you Robert Hargrave !