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Book Summary
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Collaboration Begins with You

Be a Silo Buster

Source: Berrett-Koehler
ISBN: 978-1-62656-617-0

©2015 by Polvera Publishing, Jane Ripley, and Eunice Parisi-Carew

Adapted by permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Key Concepts
Organizations with a collaborative culture tend to have higher functioning and more innovative
teams. The path to becoming more collaborative is not always clear, however. Collaboration
Begins with You, presented in the style of a business parable, provides a framework for
successful collaboration:

Collaboration can be broken down into three domains: heart, head, and hands. Heart
embodies a person’s character and intentions as a collaborator. Head addresses a
person’s beliefs about and attitude toward collaboration. Hands relates to a person’s
actions and behavior during collaboration.
In the heart domain, leaders must utilize differences. Projects should welcome diverse
opinions, and con ict should be viewed as creative and issue driven. 
In the heart domain, it is essential to nurture safety and trust. Safety and trust start at the
top and ow from leaders to frontline employees. It is important to suspend judgment
until all ideas have been heard, and to encourage employees to learn from experiments
and engage in innovative and creative problem solving.
The head domain requires leaders to involve others in crafting a clear purpose, values,
and goals. Leaders must set the vision/direction. Getting employees to act on the
vision/direction is where implementation comes into play. 
In the hands domain, employees must feel they can talk openly. Communication is
central to collaboration. Without it, employees cannot implement a vision or purpose.
English
Collaborative leaders communicate openly and act as real-time coaches.

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In the hands domain, leaders must empower themselves and others. Leaders empower
individuals by building trust and coaching competence in their job roles and networking
skills. Individuals empower one another by sharing ideas and delivering on their
assignments. 
The UNITE acronym reinforces the principles of the heart, head, and hands domains:

Utilize differences.
Nurture safety and trust.
Involve others in crafting a clear purpose, values, and goals.
Talk openly.
Empower yourself and others.

Introduction
In today’s business environment, collaboration is more important than ever. Innovative ideas
exist at all levels of organizations and within all functional areas. Collaboration is the key to
leveraging this knowledge and increasing an organization’s competitive advantage. In
Collaboration Begins with You, Ken Blanchard, Jane Ripley, and Eunice Parisi-Carew illustrate,
through an engaging short story, an effective framework for promoting a culture of collaboration.

Part I: A Journey to Collaboration 

Jim Camilleri, CEO of Cobalt, Inc., had to tell board members that their company’s recent Primo
project generated no pro t. Camilleri wanted to hear from Dave Oakman, the division head in
charge of the Primo project, what happened. 

Oakman recognized that the Primo team had not worked as a cohesive unit. Each department
worked in a silo and people focused on protecting their own interests rather than making the
project successful. Newer employees with promising ideas were sidelined by managers who
wanted the credit.

Oakman felt that xing the company culture was beyond his ability to manage. Departments
operated as self-serving silos, since incentives did not exist to encourage people to work
collectively toward organizational goals. Despite these facts, Camilleri asked Oakman to write a
report outlining the problems with the Primo project and recommendations about how to
address them.

A Well Timed Visitor

Dave Oakman’s sister-in-law, Beattie Anderson, had just sold her successful company, Blenheim.
As she listened to the problems that had plagued the Primo project, she was reminded of her
own company. Its executive team eventually realized that moving from a startup to a midsize
company caused signi cant growing pains. The key to success was promoting genuine

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collaboration. This required a culture change, as managers relinquished their silos and turned
their focus to the collective good. The transition to collaboration and a silo-busting mindset took
time, but the team succeeded.

Oakman’s wife, Dee, suggested that he put his ego aside and ask Anderson for help with his
Primo project report. He agreed and initiated a conversation with his sister-in-law about
collaboration. She conveyed several key points:

Collaboration begins with you. To be successful, collaboration must be embedded in a

company’s culture and be part of each employee’s mindset.
Collaboration can be broken down into three domains: heart, head, and hands. Heart
illustrates a person’s character and intentions as a collaborator. Head addresses a
person’s beliefs about and attitude toward collaboration. Hands relates to a person’s
actions and behavior during collaboration.
It is a good idea to start with the heart domain. Leaders must take responsibility for
getting all employees to share what they know. Diversity of perspectives is valuable.
Con ict can lead to breakthrough learning and innovation. Con ict is healthy in
collaborative groups because it focuses on issues and not personal attacks.

The Heart Domain: Utilize Differences and Nurture Safety and Trust

At Blenheim, collaboration was incorporated into the reward system. Managers were not
promoted until they clearly demonstrated that they worked in a collaborative manner. This
included colleagues con rming that they had contributed talent and knowledge willingly.
Blenheim also instituted brainstorming sessions to encourage suggestions from employees at
every level.

In response to this information, Oakman outlined the utilizing differences that he had witnessed
on the Primo project:

Department leaders did not share talent in order to protect departmental silos.
Lack of diversity contributed to like-minded thinking and suppressed innovation.
Personal con ict led team members to stop contributing potentially good ideas. 

Then, Oakman identi ed several solutions:

Team members should be chosen based on talent rather than departmental

preferences. 
Projects should welcome diverse opinions.
Personal attacks must be prevented, but con ict should be viewed as creative and issue
driven.
Promotion should be based, in part, on one’s ability to collaborate. 

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In addition to utilizing differences, Anderson emphasized that collaborative leaders must nurture
safety and trust. If employees do not feel safe, they will not speak up when they have ideas. In an
environment of safety and trust, people can act without fear of retribution or failure.

At Blenheim, nurturing safety and trust was one of the most dif cult aspects of culture change. It
had to be approached from an organizational and individual perspective. However, safety and
trust start at the top and ow from leaders to frontline employees. 

Oakman re ected on the Primo project and considered what changes would need to be made for
the upcoming Primo II project. He identi ed several problems related to safety and trust:

Ideas were criticized or dismissed, generating low trust levels.

Politics and silos had a negative effect on the project.
Some employees avoided idea sharing for fear of antagonizing their managers.
Cobalt suffered from a blame culture. The company penalized employees for mistakes
instead of viewing them as learning opportunities. 

Anderson’s insights, however, gave Oakman several ideas about how to solve these issues:

Make safety and trust company values.

Train leaders to behave in ways that promote trust and respect.
Suspend judgment until all ideas have been heard.
Implement rewards for collaboration. Enable employees to learn from experiments.
Encourage innovation and creative problem solving. 

The Head Domain: Involve Others in Crafting a Clear Purpose, Values, and Goals

As Oakman continued to ponder how to launch the new Primo II project in a collaborative way,
Anderson told him about the head domain of collaboration, which focuses on beliefs and
attitudes toward collaboration.

Collaborative leadership has two aspects: vision/direction and implementation. Leaders must set
the vision/direction. Getting employees to act on it is where implementation comes into play. At
Blenheim, the team developed values, goals, and a common purpose. The purpose united
employees around a common objective, the values guided behavior, and the goals provoked
action. Top managers created the rst draft of the purpose, values, and goals, and other
employees had the opportunity to provide feedback. This generated more buy-in. 

With this experience in mind, Oakman held a meeting to clarify the purpose, values, and goals for
the Primo II project at Cobalt. The team de ned the project’s purpose as keeping the company
moving forward by innovating for success. The team also adopted three of Cobalt’s four rank-
ordered values: integrity, relationships, and success. They modi ed the fourth value from
learning to creativity. In addition, the group identi ed four key goals:

1. Make a signi cant pro t on Primo II.

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2. Have a positive effect on the organization overall.

3. Ensure that participants feel engaged and valued for their contributions.
4. Receive a contract for Primo III.

One of Oakman’s colleagues, Wayne Lundgren, represented a major obstacle to collaboration.

Lundgren was solely interested in his Research and Development team’s success, even if it
resulted in harm to a project. After an unsuccessful meeting with Lundgren, Oakman decided to
send him an email. He made the case for using Lundgren’s resources on the Primo II project,
identifying the roles they would play and why their contributions would help the project be
pro table and demonstrate the project’s values.

The Hands Domain: Talk Openly and Empower Yourself and Others

After sending the email, Oakman met one-on-one with Lundgren. Lundgren made it clear that the
reason he did not collaborate was because he was paid based on his department’s
accomplishments. As a result, he only focused on work that his department got paid for. Oakman
recognized that Lundgren would need to be compensated in advance before contributing to the
Primo II project.

Oakman’s sister-in-law emphasized that communication is central to the hands domain of

collaboration. Without communication, it is impossible to implement a vision or purpose. She
also praised Oakman for listening to Lundgren, rather than arguing with him. That open
conversation helped him gain insight into Lundgren’s mindset. 

The hands domain focuses on one’s actions and behavior during collaboration. Successful
collaboration depends on open communication, sharing ideas, and speaking the truth. One way
that the Primo II team members tried to facilitate information sharing was by rotating staff
among departments.

As Oakman re ected on the open communication aspect of the hands domain, he identi ed
several problems that arose during the rst Primo project:

Leaders withheld information.

Leaders prevented team members from participating in the project.
Networking was discouraged.
Business plans were not communicated regularly.

In light of these issues, Oakman believed four actions could facilitate better communication:

1. Increased information sharing.

2. Cross-functional teaming.
3. More networking and spontaneous interaction.
4. Using technology to make business plans more accessible. 

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Empowerment is the second aspect of the hands domain. Leaders empower individuals by
building trust and coaching competence in their job roles and networking skills. Individuals
empower one another by sharing ideas and delivering on their assignments. When power is
distributed, employees rely less on formal position power and more on expertise and networks.
Unfortunately, many “old school” micromanagers feel that empowering others is a threat to their
way of leading.

The nature of leadership changes when employees are empowered. Managers switch from using
a command-and-control directing role to a more responsive coaching role. This can be a dif cult
transition, but once leaders accept the coaching role, they appreciate that the weight of
leadership is balanced between them and their direct reports.

As Oakman contemplated the three collaboration domains—heart, head, and hands—Anderson

noted that the three domains are interdependent. Depending on the stage of a project, some
domains will be ampli ed more than others.

Part II: Collaboration at Work: A Real-World Example

While Oakman was analyzing the aws of the Primo project and identifying ways collaboration
could make the Primo II project more successful, he learned that his wife, Dee, might have breast
cancer. After a surgical biopsy, Dee learned that she would need to undergo lumpectomy surgery
to remove malignant tissue.

As Oakman accompanied Dee to the hospital, he witnessed collaboration in action. She was
treated by a collaborative team comprising an oncologist, phlebotomist, anesthesiologist, and
nurse specialist. Oakman observed that the team discussed each case as a unique situation.
Occasional disagreements were resolved through discussion. A doctor told Oakman that the
multidisciplinary team was the key to gathering suf cient data. Although this approach took
additional time, it kept success rates high.

While his wife was in the operating room, Oakman outlined the problems related to
empowerment that had arisen during the Primo project:

Leaders blamed others instead of allowing for mistakes and learning.

Leaders were reluctant to relinquish control.
Leaders micromanaged to gain a sense of control.
Employees who did not trust leaders could not become empowered self-leaders.

He also brainstormed several solutions to these issues:

Leaders must coach for competence and build trust. This leads to empowered individual
contributors.
Leaders and direct reports should agree about when to check in and review work
progress.
Leaders must coach direct reports to strengthen their networking skills.
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Power should be distributed between leaders and the members of their work units.

To reinforce the principles of the heart, head, and hands domains, Oakman developed the UNITE
acronym:

Utilize differences.
Nurture safety and trust.
Involve others in crafting a clear purpose, values, and goals.
Talk openly.
Empower oneself and others.

The UNITE model would remind Primo II team members about how to work collaboratively.

A Turnaround and a Plan

Oakman delivered his analysis of the Primo project and recommendations for creating a culture
of collaboration to CEO Jim Camilleri. In a one-on-one meeting, Camilleri asked whether Wayne
Lundgren should be let go, since he posed a major problem to collaborative efforts. 

Despite the challenges Oakman faced with Lundgren in the past, he advised against letting him
go. Firing Lundgren would simply undermine employees’ sense of safety and trust. Lundgren and
others needed to learn how to collaborate. Oakman believed that every employee and manager
could be taught that collaboration begins with them. 

Camilleri agreed and suggested that Primo II serve as a beta test for the new collaboration
approach. If the project was successful, then Cobalt would implement a collaborative culture
throughout the company. 

Six Months Later

The Primo II project team was excited and enthusiastic. Even Lundgren had become a willing
contributor. The project generated signi cant pro t for Cobalt, the client loved the product, and a
new contract for Primo III became a reality.

Based on the success of Primo II and its collaborative culture, Camilleri informed Oakman that
the board wanted to promote him to serve as Cobalt’s chief operating of cer. His rst task in that
role would be to implement the collaboration model company-wide. Oakman would work with
Human Resources to bring experienced employees up to speed and engage young employees to
stay and lead Cobalt into the future. Since Oakman would be leaving his position as head of the
Primo project team, he recommended to Jim Camilleri that Wayne Lundgren be appointed the
new director of the Primo III project, based on the visible transformation he exhibited.

A commitment to collaboration helped Cobalt become more progressive. Recruits were more
diverse and new hires shared novel and different ways of thinking. Employees also felt safe to
come forward with new ideas during feedback and brainstorming sessions that were now a
regular part of Cobalt’s business operations.
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About the Authors

Ken Blanchard is chief spiritual of cer of The Ken Blanchard Companies. He is the author or
coauthor of more than 60 books, including The New One Minute Manager®.

Jane Ripley is cofounder of Wired Leaders. She has spent the last ve years doing research on
the topic of collaboration.

Eunice Parisi-Carew is cofounder of The Ken Blanchard Companies, where she is a senior
consultant. She is the coauthor of three bestselling books: The One Minute Manager Builds High
Performing Teams, High Five!, and Leading at a Higher Level.

Click Here to Purchase the Book

© 2017 EBSCO Publishing, Inc.

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