Book Review: "Collaborating with the Enemy: How to work with people you don't agree with or like or trust", by Adam Kahane, 2017

I have just finished reading Adam’s book, Collaborating with the Enemy: how to work with people you don’t agree with or like or trust (Kahane, 2017) (https://reospartners.com/reos-management/adam-kahane/) and the main sense that I am left with is excitement: that working with people you don’t agree with or like or trust is possible, and can lead to profound change.

This book provides a timely and profound reframing of the conventional understanding of collaboration, weaving together the everyday (what Adam terms “ordinary”) challenges of collaboration that we all face in our daily life, together with some of the “extraordinary” important challenges of our time that Adam has worked with over the years. 

There are a few aspects of the book that I found particularly striking and powerful.

The first is that Adam makes it clear that collaboration is not the only or best option and that there are other ways to deal with problematic situations that may be more appropriate at any given time.

The second is Adam’s honesty and willingness to share his personal trials and errors – to make visible to the world the thoughts and experiences that he might not be so proud of. By doing so, he invites us all as readers to do the same: to reframe our thinking about our own trials and errors, not as failures, but opportunities for our own learning and growth.

The third is the wealth of experience he draws on, from more than twenty-five years of supporting collaborative efforts to address complex social challenges around the world. Including anecdotes from a number of initiatives and projects, grounds the concepts he elaborates on, and make the book an accessible and compelling read.

And finally, while the book presents what appears to be a simple guidance on how to “collaborate with the enemy”, what it posits as the three “stretches” required, will require of us to radically transform our own way of thinking, being and acting in the world.