Book Review - Collaboration by Morten T. Hansen

A must-read for Leaders and Managers who are trying to create a high performing cross-boundary team. The book explains how to get collaboration through the "disciplined collaboration" framework.

I have tried to summarize the chapter which explains the 4 key barriers to collaboration.

1. The Not-Invented-Here Barrier

This barrier arises when people do are not willing to go beyond their teams or units to get inputs. This can happen in a team which has an insular culture where communication is mainly restricted to within the team or group. Another important factor for this barrier is the status gap, where people are not willing to cross the status line. Over time, a team or an organization can end up having a set of the group classified as either "High status" or "low status". Status gaps can run both ways, where high-status people will not damage their reputation by reaching out to low staus groups and similarly, low-status people will not want high-status folks to be critical of them. The third reason for this barrier is self-reliance where a person is convinced that he or she should be able to fix their problem. The last factor is Fear, where one hesitates to bring one's problems to light from the fear of how others will perceive them. 

2. The Hoarding Barrier

The main factors due to which people tend to hoard information is 1) they perceive their fellow units and colleagues as competition and will not like the other group to get complete access to their information. 2) Incentive programs can also be a huge influencer for this behavior. If the company is incentivizing people based on unit focused incentives, people tend to start hoarding. 3) People can tend to hoard (unknowingly) when they are too busy executing their tasks or job. They just cannot find time to go and collaborate and share their knowledge with other teams, even if they want to. 4) The last factor is the fear of losing power. Some people tend to take the adage "knowledge is power" to a different level and start hoarding to make keep themselves relevant. 

3. The Search Barrier

This usually is a scenario when the person having the problem is unable to locate and interact with the person who might have the solution to the problem. This can happen due to a few reasons: 1) Usually the scale of the company has a big impact on this barrier. The bigger the company, there are more chances that one might face search problems. 2) Physical distance can make it difficult for people to locate a person who might be able to help. 3) in some cases, when there is too much information (information overload), it starts impacting the search itself. Too much information, in this case, acts as a detrimental factor. 4) Communication channels or the networks that allow free flow of information is another important factor. Lack of networks will start to impact search and thereby create barriers. 

4. The Transfer Barrier

Transfer problem mainly happens because 1) sometimes it is difficult to transfer the tribal knowledge that exists in the team. 2) When people or teams do not have a common frame of culture, it becomes that much tougher to transfer information. This over time starts creating a transfer barrier. 3) And last but not least, weak ties between people impacts knowledge sharing. When people don't know each other well, the speed at this knowledge is shared starts to slow down thereby creating a transfer barrier over time. 

For more details on the book, please check the website: https://www.mortenhansen.com/book/collaboration/