Business Without Boundaries: An Action Framework for Collaborating Across Time, Distance, Organization, and Culture, by Don Mankin and Susan G. Cohen (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004, 207 pages, $35.00).
When I was asked to write this book review, I have to admit that I was afraid that this would be just another book that had a great title but overpromised and underdelivered. I became intrigued as I read the introduction, and those positive feelings continued as I read through the book. The crux of the matter is, without a project plan of some kind and a communication plan, even simple projects will probably fail. In fact, these two factors are the nitpicky details that can “make or break” the implementation of even the best ideas. The cases discussed in this book validate this position with large projects that rely on communication and collaboration.
The difference may well be in the authors. Don Mankin has multiple degrees and more than 30 years experience in developing complex collaborations for dispersed teams and multipart or diverse organizations, and has written four books and numerous articles. He is currently the president and founder of Co:e-laboration Design Associates. His coauthor, Susan G. Cohen, is a senior research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Her degrees in psychology, applied behavioral science, and organizational behavior have prepared her to consult and research improving organizational effectiveness and various types of virtual teams. She has coauthored two books and authored numerous articles and book chapters on business issues. Their combined backgrounds in business have created a useful tool via case studies.
The nature of technology in communication has altered the way we work in an infinite number of ways. Businesses are struggling to manage collaboration effectively and efficiently in order to compete in the global market. Various scenarios of collaborations and partnerships are presented in the book with case studies of how companies have transcended these boundaries. The book details competing companies that are creating strategic partnerships when they both have a vested interest in an outcome; companies that are creating virtual collaborations with teams or workers in different parts of the world and companies that are finding that the right employees for a particular job may not be in the same building, state, or even continent.
The book states that it will “offer ... practical steps and tools for creating, facilitating and supporting complex collaborations” and “how to ‘team’ across boundaries” (front flap). The need for global communication and collaboration is all around us. Corporations, whether brick and mortar or a virtual e-business, require a new look at the best practices of dealing with time zones, cultures, flexibility, and the ability to reconfigure the core policies as needed to ensure success. While the book focuses on supply chains, global product development teams, and inter-organizational alliances, it is general enough and adaptable enough to apply to a wide array of situations.
The chapters are (1) Introduction, (2) Across Organizations, (3 & 4) Across Time, Distance and Culture, (5 & 6) Across the Supply Chain, and (7 & 8) Action Framework.
The introduction outlines the changes in collaboration from an agricultural society with two workers putting up hay for the winter and even through Henry Ford’s first assembly line where most commerce was face-to-face or accomplished over long periods of time by mail and/or the telephone. The past 20 years or so has changed all of that. We are a world with instant connections by voice, word, or image. The impact on some businesses has been enormous as they grow, become global, and outsource; however, these options also increase demands in logistics for the organizations as they attempt to transcend geography, organizational cultures, and functions. Options are wide open for corporations to find just the right match for business. The authors define a complex collaboration as one in which there is high task uncertainty, multiple people, high diversity (of language, goals, organizations, etc.), different goals and agendas, and virtual communication versus fact-to-face contact. They then describe the characteristics of these collaborations and present their unique challenges. Collaboration may entail one or all of these conditions in a range of complexity and difficulty that contribute to the success or failure of the work processes.
The authors define an action framework for designing complex collaborations that encompasses project management, organizational change, and complex collaboration in one model. The framework consists of four phases that overlap and move in a loose spiral. These phases are defined and form the basis for the case studies that follow. The phases are:
The three case studies in this book are successively more complex and are followed by a detailed debriefing for each case. The cases illustrate the author’s action framework with the actual challenges and the actions that followed as well as the resulting consequences (positive and/or negative). They also identify
what made these collaborations work and how this information can be transferred into other types of companies. What follows is a brief description of each of these cases.
ACROSS ORGANIZATIONS: THE JOHN DEERE CONSTRUCTION AND FORESTRY TECHNICIAN PROGRAM
The first case study in chapter two is based on John Deere, an agricultural, construction, and forestry equipment business that had a need for additional service technicians to provide better service support for the equipment they sold. After-market service and repairs were seen as the fastest growing revenue sources for dealers. The purpose of the collaboration between Deere & Company, several John Deere equipment dealerships, and 2-year community/technical colleges throughout North America was to develop and offer college level courses to train technicians. Two of the collaborations are part of the case study. The authors discuss the differing issues each found and, in one case, were surmounted, and in the other were not. In the second college, internal issues with supplies and faculty turnover were major issues. The first issue was corrected; the second killed the program at that college. The chapter describes the current state and future plans and discusses the case within the framework of the authors’ phases. An extremely helpful table accompanies the discussion. Each phase ends with a summary of the key points and lessons learned.
Phase I (Setting the Stage) emphasizes promoting a culture of outside relationships and planning activities to support collaboration. Phase II (Getting Started) emphasizes finding the right partners, the need to gain support from top management, making certain resources are available, putting the right people in the right place, and linking those people in collaborative pairs. Phase III (Creating the Infrastructure) emphasizes creating an authority/governance structure and deliberately creating the roles, relationships, and understandings that will continue throughout the collaboration. Phase IV (Doing the Work) emphasizes the need to meet and communicate frequently, learn from doing, and adjust as needed.
ACROSS TIME, DISTANCE, AND CULTURE: THE CASE OF RADICA GAMES GROUP, INCORPORATED
The Radica Games Group faced issues of developing a new product with the collaborations involving people from London, Dallas, Hong Kong, and Dongguan City (in the People’s Republic of China). Time zones, language, and cultures all created challenges that made this case more complex than the John Deere one.
Makin and Cohen note that in Phase I (Setting the Stage), the group needed to build a culture of action, foster mutual respect, and develop specific skills for collaborating across cultures. Phase II (Getting Started) included gaining top management’s support, putting the right people in the right place, creating specific pairs of people to collaborate as well as management pairs, and using face-to-face interactions to build these relationships. Phase III (Creating the Infrastructure) emphasized the need to facilitate as needed, create a clear and unambiguous decision-making structure, and define tasks for structure and communicate carefully. Phase IV (Doing the Work) included being aware of the limitations of e-mail and using the time-zone differences to drive a 24hour work cycle.
ACROSS THE SUPPLY CHAIN: THE SOLECTRON CASE
The issues facing Solectron included dealing with supply chains, as well as a flow of parts, components, and final products from suppliers through manufacturers to customers. Just-intime scheduling, keeping business links and communication open, and cost issues all play a part as Solectron manages both supplier and customer connections to provide the needed goods.
Phase I (Setting the Stage) for this company included creating collaborative partners with suppliers and customers, creating the infrastructure to support collaboration, using standard contracts more as a starting point rather than an ending point in negotiations, and relying on standardized practices to streamline processes. Phase II (Getting Started) relied on partnering with an organization with a compatible culture, ensuring management support, and putting the right people in the right place. Phase III (Creating the Infrastructure) adapted pre-existing practices for new projects, using metrics to improve performance, reducing costs, and helping build upon early successes for both companies. During Phase IV (Doing the Work) the companies established a communication model, used face-to-face interactions to build relationships, and captured and used on-the-job learning from employees to aim for early successes.
Recurring themes throughout the book include building relationships, finding the right people for the job, and remembering that these are ongoing activities, not one-time events. The authors point out that there are recurring findings across all three case studies. These findings lead to the steps that can be applied to varying types of complex collaborations for varying purposes, forms, and conditions.
What is interesting about this book is that it crosses over into areas other than business. We all communicate. As educators, our mission in life is to communicate and, when we are doing it via distance education, the lessons from this book can be especially helpful. Think about the implications of creating distance education for clients in far-flung places and for students scattered across the globe who are taking classes around the clock. Think about virtual universities created for the specific purpose of making learning available 24/7. Look again at the phases and processes from the book; don’t they fit that collaboration, too? Just change the name to communication without boundaries or education without boundaries and the sentence from chapter one (page 1): “.we live in an era .... without boundaries, where competing effectively means collaborating across time, distance, organization, and culture.” It still fits, doesn’t it?
I know I would have appreciated having read this book when I worked in a hospital system in the Midwest. As an instructional designer and project manager, I created educational materials for hospitals in separate cities and with different cultures. This model would have enhanced my ability to manage the process much more easily. The two phases that would have been most helpful are getting started (getting key people to work together and creating relationships) and creating the infrastructure (developing a structure to support collaboration and outlining processes for the project). While I eventually was successful, having a plan prior to the projects would have made me much more effective and efficient.
Unless you are working in a vacuum and have no interactions with clients, vendors, suppliers, or coworkers, this book can offer a plan to make these and other collaborations much stronger. Check out the book if you are contemplating creating collaboration or if you are in the midst of one that could use help. However, please understand that this is not a cookbook: while there are similarities in the case studies, the real strength is in the action framework which provides the mechanism to ask the right questions and build in the collaboration/ communication skeleton from the beginning, whether you are creating excellent business or excellent education.
