Leading Across Boundaries

"...???an invaluable contribution to anyone charged with shaping organizations, big and small." —DON KETTL, author, The Next Government of the United States Praise for LEADING ACROSS BOUNDARIES "Leading Across Boundaries is a terrific resource for nonprofit leaders. It is filled with great stories of collaboration, and also with the how-to's to make them work!" —ARLENE KAUKUS, former president, United Way of Buffalo and Erie County, and a nonprofit consultant "Linden illustrates the importance of collaboration, but drives further into issues of networks to teach us valuable lessons about core interests, trust, leadership, and success. This book is a very valuable and timely resource for practitioners who seek to produce more value from effective collaboration." —STEPHEN GOLDSMITH, Daniel Paul Professor of Government, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and author, The Power of Social Innovation "Linden provides a fresh, practitioner-oriented perspective on the topic of collaboration—especially for those in the public and nonprofit sectors wanting to benefit from Web 2.0 and social-networking technologies. It's a gem of a book and a terrific road map for leading change." —WARREN MASTER, president and editor-in-chief, The Public Manager "Linden uses fabulous examples to illustrate the essential ideas for collaboration and for effective leadership. His discussions of political acumen and the interpersonal side of collaboration are especially enlightening. I've been a manager for a long time, and wish I'd read this book earlier in my career!" —ELLEN SWITKES, assistant vice president emeritus, academic advancement, office of the president, University of California "Trust, transparency, and relationships are keys to successful collaboration. Linden takes these concepts and more and constructs a masterful lesson plan for us to follow." —TIM LONGO, police chief, Charlottesville, Virginia

"...???an invaluable contribution to anyone charged with shaping organizations, big and small." DON KETTL, author, The Next Government of the United States Praise for LEADING ACROSS BOUNDARIES "Leading Across Boundaries is a terrific resource for nonprofit leaders. It is filled with great stories of collaboration, and also with the how-to's to make them work!" ARLENE KAUKUS, former president, United Way of Buffalo and Erie County, and a nonprofit consultant "Linden illustrates the importance of collaboration, but drives further into issues of networks to teach us valuable lessons about core interests, trust, leadership, and success. This book is a very valuable and timely resource for practitioners who seek to produce more value from effective collaboration." STEPHEN GOLDSMITH, Daniel Paul Professor of Government, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and author, The Power of Social Innovation "Linden provides a fresh, practitioner-oriented perspective on the topic of collaboration especially for those in the public and nonprofit sectors wanting to benefit from Web 2.0 and social-networking technologies. It's a gem of a book and a terrific road map for leading change." WARREN MASTER, president and editor-in-chief, The Public Manager "Linden uses fabulous examples to illustrate the essential ideas for collaboration and for effective leadership. His discussions of political acumen and the interpersonal side of collaboration are especially enlightening. I've been a manager for a long time, and wish I'd read this book earlier in my career!" ELLEN SWITKES, assistant vice president emeritus, academic advancement, office of the president, University of California "Trust, transparency, and relationships are keys to successful collaboration. Linden takes these concepts and more and constructs a masterful lesson plan for us to follow." TIM LONGO, police chief, Charlottesville, Virginia

Leadership Across Boundaries: A Passage to Aporia theorizes on leadership in an unprecedented manner by stepping outside of conventional leadership theory and importing into leadership studies the implications of certain innovations in the social sciences, such as pluralism, complexity theory, and the dialogical turn, to change the way scholars discuss and study leadership. Leadership Across Boundaries anchors theoretical passages that generate a new way of imagining what it means to lead and follow with concrete examples about Martin Luther, the Common Law, dialogue as a practice, a painting by Diego Velázquez, synchronized fireflies, and the strange career of Francis of Assisi. This book acknowledges the limitations of existing leadership research as being too leader-centric, simplistic, static, and in many cases oblivious to the power of images to shape our understanding. To rectify these limitations, Leadership Across Boundaries examines alternative images of leadership grounded in concrete examples that present leadership in an unprecedented light. The book includes a discussion of invigorating ideas of homeward leadership (looking backward), extra-ordinary leadership (going forward), and what will be defined as the perennial need for aikido politics. An interdisciplinary text, Leadership Across Boundaries: A Passage to Aporia will appeal not only to scholars, instructors, and students of leadership, but also to those in the many fields in which leadership theory applies, such as history, economics, sociology, archetypal psychology, the law, political philosophy, applied mathematics, and the martial arts.

Working Across Boundaries is a practical guide for nonprofit and government professionals who want to learn the techniques and strategies of successful collaboration. Written by Russell M. Linden, one of the most widely recognized experts in organizational change, this no nonsense book shows how to make collaboration work in the real world. It offers practitioners a framework for developing collaborative relationships and shows them how to adopt strategies that have proven to be successful with a wide range of organizations. Filled with in-depth case studies—including a particularly challenging case in which police officers and social workers overcome the inherent differences in their cultures to help abused children—the book clearly shows how organizations have dealt with the hard issues of collaboration. Working Across Boundaries includes Information on how to select potential partners Guidelines for determining what kinds of projects lend themselves to collaboration and which do not Suggestions on how to avoid common pitfalls of collaboration Strategies proven to work consistently The phases most collaborative projects go through The nature of collaborative leadership

PRAISE FOR BOUNDARY SPANNING LEADERSHIP "Fostering a culture of teamwork among business units and partners is crucial for bottom-line success. This groundbreaking book, packed with practical examples and based on solid research, shows us how to get started." -- Marc Noel, Chairman, Noël Group LLC "In this deeply insightful look at the demands on 21st-century leaders, Ernst and Chrobot-Mason outline six boundary spanning leadership practices derived from case studies and research with thousands of participating managers. This work is bound to be one of the most important management books of the decade." -- David A. Thomas, Ph.D., H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School "Few books capture the needs and narrative of today's business and so elegantly lay out a plan to address its challenges. Boundary Spanning Leadership nails this . . . Consume it and play your role!" -- Andy Stefanovich, Chief Curator and Provocateur, Prophet "Boundary Spanning Leadership draws on rigorous global research and real-world experience to help leaders move into new frontiers where they can find answers and practices for creating success." -- Jack Stahl, former CEO, Revlon, and President /COO, Coca-Cola "The future will be punctuated by new spans across old boundaries. This book shows you how to improve your span ability." -- Bob Johansen, Ph.D., Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future, and bestselling author of Get There Early and Leaders Make the Future Catalyze collaboration, drive innovation, transform your organization--with Boundary Spanning Leadership you can put it ALL together! We live in a world of vast collaborative potential. Yet all too often, powerful boundaries create barriers that can splinter groups. And this can lead to uninspiring results. To transform borders into frontiers in today's global, multistakeholder organizations, you need Boundary Spanning Leadership. Powered by a decade of global research and practice by the top-ranked Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), this book takes you from rural towns in the United States to Hong Kong's skyline and from a modernizing South Africa to the bustling streets of India, showing you how to build bridges across boundaries. Through compelling stories and practical tools and tactics, you’ll learn how to apply the six boundary spanning practices that occur at the nexus where groups collide, intersect, and link: Buffering defines boundaries to create safety Reflecting creates understanding of boundaries to foster respect Connecting suspends boundaries to build trust Mobilizing reframes boundaries to develop community Weaving interlaces boundaries to advance interdependence Transforming cross-cuts boundaries to enable reinvention Together, these practices combine to create what authors Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason call the Nexus Effect. The Nexus Effect allows groups to be more agile in response to changing markets; be more flexible in devising and deploying cross-functional learning and problem-solving capabilities; work with partners in deeper, more open relationships; empower virtual teams; and create a welcoming, diverse, and inclusive organization that brings out everybody's best. Boundaries exist. What matters most is how you work to bridge these divides and transform your organization's wide-ranging talents and knowledge to deliver value. With Boundary Spanning Leadership, the possibilities are limitless. For more about the book and free resources, visit www.spanboundaries.com.

Collaboration between governments, business, the voluntary and community sectors is now central to the way public policy is made, managed and delivered. This book provides the first comprehensive and authoritative account of the theory, policy and practice of collaboration. Written by two leading authorities in the field the book explores the experience of collaboration in regeneration, health and other policy sectors, and assesses the consequences of the emergence of public-private partnerships contrasting the UK experience to that elsewhere in the world.

Extreme Teaming provides new insights into the world of increasingly complex, cross industry projects. Amy Edmondson and Jean-Francois Harvey show vividly through their international cases how the complex demands of collaboration impact on management and revolutionize our understanding of teams.

Leaders today—whether in corporations or associations, nonprofits or nations—face massive, messy, multidimensional problems. No one person or group can possibly solve them—they require the broadest possible cooperation. But, says Harvard scholar Dean Williams, our leadership models are still essentially tribal: individuals with formal authority leading in the interest of their own group. In this deeply needed new book, he outlines an approach that enables leaders to transcend internal and external boundaries and help people to collaborate, even people over whom they technically have no power. Drawing on what he's learned from years of working in countries and organizations around the world, Williams shows leaders how to approach the delicate and creative work of boundary spanning, whether those boundaries are cultural, organizational, political, geographic, religious, or structural. Sometimes leaders themselves have to be the ones who cross the boundaries between groups. Other times, a leader's job is to build relational bridges between divided groups or even to completely break down the boundaries that block collaborative problem solving. By thinking about power and authority in a different way, leaders will become genuine change agents, able to heal wounds, resolve conflicts, and bring a fractured world together.