Collaboration is as much about shared value creation as it is about innovation and disruption. The mix of these factors is not easy to come to terms with for the savviest of managers, let alone the conservatively educated ones who still adhere to last century’s management textbooks. There’s no need to throw the old books out, but adding a few new ones to the management library may be all that is needed to comprehend the new significance of collaboration. Some industries have already been shaped by the idea of collaboration as their most powerful strategy. Others are yet to recognise what collaboration can offer to any business wanting to be relevant, competitive and sustainable. This week’s edition of recommended reading offers a few insights and answers every business manager should ask.

Sincere thanks to those who have suggested articles for this edition of Roadmender Recommends.

Collaboration or exploitation? Finding relationship harmony for agencies and startups

Startups, the new kids on the block, are in demand from agencies and brands in search of new ideas and solutions. But is the value exchange always a fair trade? Startups are the new darlings of ingenuity, and advertising agencies are eager to tap into their fresh thinking. Free from hierarchical structures, the agility of startups to deliver innovative solutions is inspiring brands of all shapes to get in on the action. Agencies want to draw on this thinking for clients, while startups want access to brands and agencies’ experience of complex campaign execution. A collaborative approach, benefiting all. In theory…READ ON

Utilizing Differences to Build Collaboration

Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster, my coauthors Jane Ripley, Eunice Parisi-Carew, and I explain the importance of building a culture of collaboration in your organization. Believing true collaboration is the responsibility of every individual, we define five elements each person must consider when accepting their specific role in helping to create that culture…READ ON

Great Company Culture Demands Collaboration

Collaboration is the second component of a great company culture. It’s about having a vision but also compromising for the greater good. My imaginary boyfriend, Jon Stewart, once described collaboration by saying, “…you go, then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go.” And we are all better for it. But nobody collaborates at work when employees fight for a 3.8% merit increase. And nobody works with human resources professionals if we lie to our workers about a “fair and impartial performance review system” and act as if we’re doing them a favor by barely keeping their wages…READ ON

Can creative collaboration meet the challenges facing public services?

Given the scale of the challenges we face, only by collaborating effectively can public services support and strengthen communities. But how do we bring people together? There is a growing recognition across society that collaboration is vital to meeting the increasingly complex challenges we face. When our welfare state was originally created, its architects did not anticipate that decades later social, economic and technological transformations would give rise to the ‘wicked’ problems of today: entrenched inequality, chronic ill-health and the impacts of an ageing society. The ability of a ‘transactional’ state to respond with managerial solutions, particularly in an austerity and rising…READ ON

What Customers Want from the Collaborative Economy

We now have research to show that companies need to embrace the core innovations of the collaborative economy if they want to thrive in the era of Kickstarter, Uber and Taskrabbit. That’s the key insight of The New Rules of the Collaborative Economy, a report I co-authored with Jeremiah Owyang, which was released this week by Vision Critical and Crowd Companies. When we authored the first large-scale study of collaborative…READ ON

Unleashing the Power of Teacher Collaboration

What happens when teachers trade isolation for collaboration? Teachers in Colorado and Kentucky wanted to find out so they created the Common Assignment Study (CAS) to show the positive impact of teachers working across district and state lines to better serve students. This two year partnership has produced free downloadable resources of high quality curricula and instructional resources demonstrating the power that is unleashed when teachers are supported to work together in authentic and professional ways…READ ON