Working Across Boundaries: Making Collaboration Work in Government and Nonprofit Organizations

What do James Madison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Peter Drucker, the Book of Exodus, Robert Frost, Vince Lombardi, T.S. Eliot, Dr. Spock and Albert Einstein all have in common? They are all quoted in Russ Linden's new book, "Working Across Boundaries: Making Collaboration Work in Government and Non-Profit Organizations." Linden ties them all together in an entertaining and instructive manual for managing in today's work environment. Linden's book is for practitioners, a group that includes me, since I have been practicing at this profession for almost 30 years. He holds true to the purpose he has set for the book, which is to help practitioners address the hurdles to collaboration and adopt strategies that lead to succesful collaboration, in order to achieve better outcomes for their customers and communities. What I like best about the book is the use of stories to instruct and inform. Stories are the core tool in relationship building....I know that my bosses, often rely heavily on the stories told them by their constituents to make critical policy decisions....Linden's stories about the collaborative work of the Baltimore Child Advocacy Center; the National Marine Fisheries Service; the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, and others provide practical examples of how his models work in the real world. He not only suggests numerous techniques for establishing practical, collaborative efforts. He also adds a series of four "resource" chapters at the end of the book with illustrations of how these techniques have been applied, the most-asked questions about collaboration together with their answers, an assessment tool, and a summary of the situations in numerous organizations that have served as the basis for his conclusions and models. I especially liked Chapter 6 on "Forming Open, Trusting Relationships Among the Principals." It gave me some helpful hints on working with my council. Linden's book is a must-read for anyone trying to overcome the obstacles he says were created by James Madison and his buddies , who "consciously designed an inefficient government to keep men free." This "built-in" inefficiency and fragmentation cries out for the cure of collaboration.

Anyone who has worked in government has probably experienced the twin frustrations of people protecting their turf on the one hand while covering their rear with the other. But being effective these days means working in teams, often across the old hierarchical reporting structures of agencies, divisions and units.Linden's book uses a variety of case studies to explore how collaboration can work, and what the pitfalls can be. He defines collaboration initially as what "occurs when people from different organizations (or units within one organization) produce something together through joint effort, resources, and decision making, and share ownership of the final product or service." His examples range from land management to criminal justice to education to intelligence--all areas where multiple agencies or organizations had to collaborate in a high stakes environment.High stakes is one of the four keys for Linden. There must be something important enough to motivate the collaboration. The other keys are strong relationships among the collaborators, the existence of a constituency for collaboration, and what he calls "the basics" -- openness, skillful facilitating, etc. What makes it all work is collaborative leadership--individuals who can pull others along with them into a productive team effort. One chapter discusses the qualities of effective collaborative leaders, who must subordinate their own egos to ensure that all participants have a real stake.If "Working Across Boundaries" has a fault, it is that he has many good ideas and observations that don't fit neatly into the four-element structure, but that he doesn't want to leave out. Every chapter includes some of these "extras" and many of them are grouped in a separate chapter, "More Keys to Successful Collaboration" (including such things as measuring results, using each party's strengths, etc.). Since it is almost all good advice and worthwhile reading, this is really only a minor structural complaint.Also useful are the resource materials at the end of the book, including a sample agenda, a collaboration "contract" and some assessment materials. These are good templates for anyone starting a new collaborative effort.In describing the qualities of successful collaboration, Linden is also aware of the structural and personal challenges that collaborations often face. Budgets, for example, are usually built in line items to specific organizations; in fact, organizations are largely defined by their budgets. So sharing resources across organizations requires trust and mutual commitment. Accountability, too, both at the level of the individual employee and at the organizational level, is especially challenging when the outcome is the result of a cross-agency collaboration. On the other hand, when collaboration produces better results, as it often does, participants can all share in the glory.

Todays managers must use numerous skills and resources in order to be effective and successful. And although there are numerous tools and techniques available to assist managers in their daily jobs, sometimes the best solution is simply working together. Or in other words, collaborating. This is what Russ Linden's new book, "Working Across Boundaries: Making Collaboration Work in Government and Non-Profit Organizations" ultimately encourages and demonstrates. Russ Linden has provided numerous case studies throughout the book to assist the reader with relating to particular issues confronting organizations. He also provides a wealth of resources including sample agendas, contracts, assessment tools and programs used by a variety of agencies and individuals. The author has taken on the challenge of documenting the benefits, techniques, and tools needed to successfully implement collaboration in the workplace and with outside organizations. I highly recommend "Working Across Boundaries" to all government managers. Congratulations to Russ for a great book on a difficult subject.

This is an wonderful book for any government unit, non-profit organization that is interested in working across boundaries. It captures the spirit and essence of working across boundaries with real life examples. Any leader in government should read this book. You can use the techniques and suggestions to improve performance and recapture the spirit of innovation. Mr. Linden provides good resources and ideas to help managers and leaders work across boundaries.