A Systematic Guide To Collaboration And Competition Within Organizations

We expect our organizational leaders and managers to be competent in collaboration and competition. However, truly exceptional leaders are masters of collaboration and competition at the same time, within the same projects and even within the same teams. These Interplay Leaders understand the subtle yet continuous interplay of collaboration and competition necessary for a project's success. The central argument of this book is that the current unspoken assumption in organizational leadership and management that all projects are either collaborative or competitive but never both is fatally flawed and produces, at best, sub-optimal results and at worst total failures. I discuss why I believe this 'single dynamic' mindset has gripped organizations by first reviewing the literature and then examining the etymology of the words "collaborate" and "compete." I then look to biology, war, politics and sport to show that this division between collaboration and competition is artificial and not a natural state of affairs. I propose a new understanding of how these two activities, collaboration and competition, fundamentally interplay and suggest two new hybrid dynamics "Edgy Collaboration" and "Eco Competition" which organizational teams can recognise and employ. I also identify and describe 9 practical disciplines/skills for mastering the Collaborate/Compete "Interplay":1. Qualification2. Teaming3. Game Mapping4. Scorecards5. Reputation6. Alliancing7. Principled Negotiating8. Decision-Making9. Course CorrectionsI conclude by discussing how learning/simulation games can assist in building the skills needed to succeed in Interplay and describe 3 real on-line team game examples which explore the new interplay dynamics experientially and socially

In November, 1997, The Institute of Medicine convened a one-day conference to explore areas for potential collaboration to improve quality among competing health plans consistent with antitrust and other legal requirements. The conference was convened to clarify the limits of such potential activities and to explore ways to stimulate collaboration; in short, to explore permissible and promising areas for collaboration for competing health plans. Competition has existed at the provider level in the pre-managed care era and continues among physicians, physician groups and hospitals today. What is new is the extent of competition at the managed care organization level in individual regional markets. As large numbers of individuals are enrolled in health plans, the potential for new forms of cooperation for improving quality of care becomes possible. Along with these new possibilities, however, come questions about whether they bring the potential for antitrust violation.

New breakthrough thinking in organizational learning, leadership, and change Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. Amy Edmondson shows that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those organizations work. In most organizations, the work that produces value for customers is carried out by teams, and increasingly, by flexible team-like entities. The pace of change and the fluidity of most work structures means that it's not really about creating effective teams anymore, but instead about leading effective teaming. Teaming shows that organizations learn when the flexible, fluid collaborations they encompass are able to learn. The problem is teams, and other dynamic groups, don't learn naturally. Edmondson outlines the factors that prevent them from doing so, such as interpersonal fear, irrational beliefs about failure, groupthink, problematic power dynamics, and information hoarding. With Teaming, leaders can shape these factors by encouraging reflection, creating psychological safety, and overcoming defensive interpersonal dynamics that inhibit the sharing of ideas. Further, they can use practical management strategies to help organizations realize the benefits inherent in both success and failure. Presents a clear explanation of practical management concepts for increasing learning capability for business results Introduces a framework that clarifies how learning processes must be altered for different kinds of work Explains how Collaborative Learning works, and gives tips for how to do it well Includes case-study research on Intermountain healthcare, Prudential, GM, Toyota, IDEO, the IRS, and both Cincinnati and Minneapolis Children's Hospitals, among others Based on years of research, this book shows how leaders can make organizational learning happen by building teams that learn.

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is an important process that can serve as a tool and strategy to solve complex issues and problems such as transforming national food systems towards more sustainable outcomes. This guide aims to support stakeholders working at all levels of the food system in the implementation of actions to transform their food systems. Centered on 5 building blocks underpinning successful multi-stakeholder collaboration for food systems transformation, the guide uses these constructions to illustrate ingredients of the process and show the interconnectedness of the steps needed to be successful. The guide also contains two annexes with a list of tools, and assessment questions. Annex 1 highlights a range of tools to support facilitators and participants with deeper guidance on a specific topic. Annex 2 contains a checklist of questions, customized to the content provided under each Building Block, and serves as an ongoing monitoring tool that can be used alongside the recommendations provided.

There are many terms for partnering - collaboration, team, joint venture, strategic alliance - and these take on numerous forms such as company-company partnering, company-supplier partnering, company-customer partnering, collaboration between departments within an organization, or between organizations. In today's marketplace partnering is on the increase, and it needs attention to be successful. This is an accessible manual which identifies key partnering-friendly characteristics for organizations and presents practical examples to demonstrate how to devise the right strategy for any situation.

This volume contains two Open Access chapters. Volume 64 of Research in the Sociology of Organizations takes stock of research on processes of inter-organizational collaboration and explores new topics that call for inquiry.

It is common for undergraduate and graduate students across various disciplines to be placed on teams and assigned group project research reports and presentations which require them to work together. For example a psychology course requires teams to develop, conduct, analyze and present the result of their experiments, a marketing course requires student project teams to prepare marketing plans and present their conclusions, and an organizational behavior course forms teams for the purpose of researching the cultures of different organizations and making presentations about their findings. This new guidebook will be a core text on how to help student project teams confront and successfully resolve issues, tasks and problems. Sections include conceptual material, stories and illustrations, and exercises. Students and teachers in Organizational Behavior, Management, Marketing and all psychology disciplines will find this book of interest.

Business failure is not limited to start ups. Industry Watch (published by BDO Stoy Hayward, an accounting firm) 'predicts that 17,043 businesses will fail (in the UK) in 2006, a further 4 per cent increase from 2005'. In America between 1990 and 2000, there were over 6.3 million business start-ups and over 5.7 million business shut-downs. Risk of failure can be greatly reduced through effective organizational design that encourages high performance and adaptability to changing circumstances. Organization design is a straightforward business process but curiously managers rarely talk about it and even more rarely take steps to consciously design or redesign their business for success. This new Economist guide explores the five principles of effective organization design, which are that it must be: driven by the business strategy and the operating context (not by a new IT system, a new leader wanting to make an impact, or some other non-business reason). involve holistic thinking about the organization be for the future rather than for now not to be undertaken lightly - it is resource intensive even when going well be seen as a fundamental process not a repair job. (Racing cars are designed and built. They are then kept in good repair.)