A Washington Post Bestseller
Not all collaboration is smart. Make sure you do it right.
Professional service firms face a serious challenge. Their clients
increasingly need them to solve complex problems--everything from
regulatory compliance to cybersecurity, the kinds of problems that only
teams of multidisciplinary experts can tackle.
Yet most firms have carved up their highly specialized, professional
experts into narrowly defined practice areas, and collaborating across
these silos is often messy, risky, and expensive. Unless you know why
you're collaborating and how to do it effectively, it may not be smart
at all. That's especially true for partners who have built their
reputations and client rosters independently, not by working with peers.
In Smart Collaboration, Heidi K. Gardner shows that firms earn higher
margins, inspire greater client loyalty, attract and retain the best
talent, and gain a competitive edge when specialists collaborate across
functional boundaries. Gardner, a former McKinsey consultant and Harvard
Business School professor now lecturing at Harvard Law School, has spent
over a decade conducting in-depth studies of numerous global
professional service firms. Her research with clients and the empirical
results of her studies demonstrate clearly and convincingly that
collaboration pays, for both professionals and their firms.
But Gardner also offers powerful prescriptions for how leaders can
foster collaboration, move to higher-margin work, increase client
satisfaction, improve lateral hiring, decrease enterprise risk, engage
workers to contribute their utmost, break down silos, and boost their
bottom line.
With case studies and real-world insights, Smart Collaboration
delivers an authoritative case for the value of collaboration to today's
professionals, their firms, and their clients and shows you exactly how
to achieve it.
