Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsLoved it as it helped me learn new nomenclature
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 13, 2022
This book was recommended to me from our Senior VP in HR. So, I was very eager to order it and get my hands on it. I also promised a review within a week, so as you can see, mission accomplished. Reading a book like this within a week means that its highly valuable (more below) and compact or else you cannot read them. Case in point is the Robert Greene's books, which I love to read, but I cannot promise to read them within a week.
I struggled between a 3 and a 4 for this book (below on things that could be better), but decided on a 4 for the book being concise. If this book was 300 pages, with the same amount of insights, I would have given a 3.
1) The concept of stretch collaboration was eye opening for me. I have always seen collaboration as a boolean, either do it or don't, but seeing a different variants of collaboration was an eye opening moment, which will entice me to approach these situations with an open mind rather than yes or no.
2) Collaboration being the last option is also an important concept. For a long time, I've seen collaboration as the first step of a process and I have invested varying degrees of energy put into making it happen. Collaboration slows us down was a concept I pushed later on in my management path, but some people found it hard to be palatable. I suspected that it was me and my natural penchant for delivering results, but its highly comforting to talk those in a more informed fashion.
3) In stretch collaboration, take the onus on you to deliver results as opposed to listing problems with others is also a very relieving notion. Again, its something I intuitively do, but I'm so glad to have an informed opinion around doing that, rather than seeing it instinctive and at times viewing it as a crutch for my career advancement.
Things that could have done better:
1) I struggled to get the "collaboration" part of stretch collaboration. In stretch collaboration, you don't insist on a shared understanding or a shared plan and each of us advance with our own agenda. Is "discussions" and "informing", the only parts of the stretch collaboration? Or are there ways to convert stretch collaboration to conventional collaboration at least for some portions later.
2) A lot of examples particularly at the latter stages seem to be confined to author's emotions and feelings. The India example was one such incident, where I wanted the author to spend sometime going into the learnings he had. Similarly, the author talking about conventional collaboration and contrasting some of it would have also been illuminating.
Overall enjoyed reading the book and its something I plan to refer to my colleagues and friends as well.