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  • Is Ford’s New Marketing Head a Star? Plus Keith Richards Provides Collaboration Insight

    James Farley is no star, but The New York Times would have us think otherwise. Farley is Ford Motor Company’s new group vice president of marketing and communications. He took the job after spending seventeen years at Toyota, most recently as group vice president and general manager of Lexus.

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    The Times ran as its business section lead last Sunday a story about Farley headlined “A Star at Toyota, A Believer at Ford.” There is little in the story that would suggest Farley is a star, but the Times nevertheless packaged the story in a way that perpetuates the Myth of the Single Cowboy. This is the notion that one self-sufficient, rugged individual can achieve smashing success without help from anybody. We turn athletes, chefs, surgeons, politicians, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders into stars. The media drives this myth into our living rooms, our organizations and into our consciousness.

    In the same edition as the Farley story, the Times travel section’s first page promoted a story on French chefs on page 7 as “The New Culinary Stars of Bordeaux.” What about the line cooks, the prep people, the servers and the expeditors? It takes more than a single, star chef to prepare a meal in an upscale restaurant. But the Times and many other media outlets would prefer that we believe one person makes it all happen.

    Toyota emphasizes collaboration over star culture. Farley clearly chalked up significant achievements at Toyota, because he collaborated across levels, functions and business units. Rather than practicing shoot-from-the-hip management, Toyota leaders practice nemawashi, which means literally “to prepare a tree’s roots for the soil.” Nemawashi is essentially about getting broad input into decisions and making decisions slowly by consensus. As a star, Farley could never have achieved much at Toyota. As a collaborator, Farley and his colleagues created considerable value.

    Over the weekend, I saw the awesome IMAX version of the new Rolling Stones movie, Shine a Light, directed by Martin Scorsese. In the film, Keith Richards discusses his guitar prowess as compared with that of Ron Wood, who shares with Richards the title co-lead guitarist of the Stones. “We’re both pretty lousy, but together we’re better than ten others,” Richards says. This sums up the value of collaboration over star culture.

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  • Dana Holding Corporation Gets Collaborative CEO

    Gary_convis Gary Convis is willing to roll up his sleeves and get dirty, and he listens closely and collaborates with people at all levels. The retired chairman of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky is joining Toledo, Ohio-based Dana Holding Corporation, as its CEO.

    When I was researching The Culture of Collaboration book, Convis was generous with his time and provided tremendous insight into how collaboration creates value for Toyota. Published reports have focused on Convis’ knowledge of lean manufacturing techniques, but he will likely engage Dana team members in every function, region and level to adopt a more collaborative culture.

    Convis speaks softly and exudes confidence, but without a trace of egotism. At Toyota, he expected aspiring leaders to spend time on the assembly line. “When you put in days of working on the line with your own hands building a car, what the team member does every day, that means you really connect with that team member and you have respect for what they do,” Convis told me.

    As a collaborative leader, Convis seeks broad input into decisions and expects people to contribute regardless of role or title. He also believes strongly in mentoring, and will guide protégés to adopt more collaborative approaches to leadership. Shoot-from-the-hip managers, information hoarders, and people used to star status will likely need to adapt.

    Dana and Convis share some values. The “Dana style” of management emphasizes idea generation from everybody and “cooperation among Dana people globally.” However, Convis will likely work across business units and functions to help nourish seeds of collaboration.

    Dana’s values, as described on the company’s web site, include employing, developing and promoting “the very best people based on personal performance and skills.” With Convis at the helm, Dana may change this statement to “the very best people based on collaborative performance and skills.”

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  • Overcoming Fear of Failure Enhances Collaboration

    Zane Safrit, the highly-collaborative CEO of Conference Calls Unlimited, has added substantially to the conversation about how accepting and learning from failure enhances collaboration. Zane_safrit Incidentally, Zane is a living, breathing example of a CEO who leverages collaborative culture and tools to create value.

    Conference Calls Unlimited has integrated many collaborative tools into its culture. Using the basecamp Wiki product from 37 Signals, Zane notes, helps eliminate backdoor channels of conversation and decisions at Conference Calls Unlimited. But minimizing fear of failure is more about the culture Zane has helped instill than it is about the tool per se. Rather than trying to hide mistakes, team members feel comfortable sharing work and ideas for all to see. Some ideas work and a few fail, but everybody keeps learning and collaborating; and the company benefits from the cultural acceptance that it’s ok to fail. Zane and his team avoid using the word mistake and instead focus on learning and collaborative accomplishments. And the result is that Conference Calls Unlimited, Zane feels, makes fewer mistakes because of the collaborative culture and environment. You can read Zane’s post here.

    Meantime, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch are searching for CEO replacements in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. The problem, according to a story (subscription required) by Aaron Lucchetti and Monica Langley in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, is that these firms suffer from a thin talent pool. It seems that the lack of internal CEO candidates stems from a Wall Street culture that is so focused on quarterly returns that leaders quickly lose their jobs if they fail to deliver.

    Something else that’s at play on Wall Street is the star cultures that plague many firms. An individual must perform as a star analyst, star trader, or a star executive. If he or she fails, the company is quick to sack the individual. Trust is out the window, and the organization—as we’re now seeing—suffers. This kind of culture gives rise to scandals including numbers fudging. Enron, which had a star culture, comes to mind. In collaborative cultures, team members brainstorm, make mistakes, chalk up successes, and often create far more value for the organization. Overcoming the fear of failing advances collaborative culture and can deliver significant returns.

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  • Collaboration and the New York City Subway

    Collaboration enhances efficiency and innovation and keeps the equipment maintained and the trains running on time, literally, for the New York City subway system. New_york_subway_1979 In the 1970s, the New York subway system was in a shambles. I know, because I rode the subway to school in those years when I was growing up in New York. System delays and breakdowns were commonplace.

    (Above image: A New York subway car in 1979. Photo by Doug Grotjahn, collection of Joe Testagrose)

    Part of the problem was that the transit system rarely maintained subway cars and instead bought new ones when it had money, which was rare. This, according to a story by William Neuman headlined “After 45 Years, Subway Chief Has Reached His Stop” in the October 13 edition of The New York Times. You can read the story here. Neuman writes that in the 1960’s, a transit system mechanical engineer named Doug Tilton believed there was a better way and developed a plan to perform scheduled maintenance on subway cars, which was then a novel concept. In those days, according to the article, “most managers at the transit agency were not interested in new ideas from their employees.”

    In the 1970’s,Tilton gained traction for his proposal by collaborating with Michael Lombardi, an instructor and manager at the transit system. Lombardi saw an opportunity, because the transit system had hired a consultant to address subway breakdowns. Lombardi and the consultant promoted Tilton’s idea and gained the support of top transit officials.

    In 1981, the state of New York authorized a multibillion dollar plan to overhaul the city’s transit system. This helped institutionalize the program which is now known as the Scheduled Maintenance System. The transit authority has extended the program to the bus fleet, and transit agencies in other cities have adopted similar programs.

    Lombardi told the Times that in 1979, subway cars broke down on average every 4800 miles traveled. Today they break down every 149,000 miles. Collaboration certainly has created value for the New York City subways. Next month, Michael Lombardi will retire as the senior vice president for subways at New York City transit. By collaborating with Tilton and the consultant, he accomplished more than he ever could have alone.

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  • Collaboration and Star Culture

    Collaboration requires collaborative culture. That’s the whole point of this blog. The opposite of collaborative culture is star culture, which our collective culture—particularly in the United States—perpetuates. The media is certainly complicit, because celebrity stories draw audiences. Therefore, the media has a vested interest in manufacturing stars—not just Hollywood people, but business leaders, athletes, entrepreneurs, surgeons, chefs and others. Food writers are particularly culpable, and we’ve certainly seen the celebrity craze spread to winemakers.

    Now, apparently, star culture is trying to envelop tequila makers. Last Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a short article by Camper English headlined “Next big thing: Tequila bottle signings.” You can read the article here. The story begins, “Further evidence that distillers are the new rock stars…” We learn from the article that Carlos Camarena, owner and third-generation master distiller of El Tesoro Tequila, will be in San Francisco to sign autographs on $185 bottles of tequila at a liquor store.

    Clearly, Mr. Camarena is not alone in contributing to the success of El Tesoro. According to El Tesoro’s web site, making tequila begins with the jimador, the person who hand picks perfectly-ripe agaves and separates the pina, the juicy blue core, from the rest of the plant. “Most other tequila producers use an automated system that processes the entire stem,” the web site notes. Next workers cut the pinas into quarters with a special ax. In the next stage, workers use the traditional method of baking the pina quarters for 36 hours and cooling them for another 36 hours. Next workers use a one-ton stone wheel called a tahona to crush the pinas, extracting their juices. There are three more steps.

    The point is that many people with a variety of expertise collaborate to make El Tesoro tequila. While I appreciate the marketing benefits of Mr. Camarena signing tequila bottles during his rock star-style tour, this feeds into star culture and sends the wrong message to the public and to El Tesoro team members. Promoting the CEO as a star may produce a momentary marketing bounce, but a collaborative culture sustains greater business value than a star culture.

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  • Creating Wealth Collaboratively

    Collaboration is central to creating wealth. Contrary to the myth our star culture perpetuates, people working collaboratively achieve greater success than individuals. While some individuals may walk away with the lion’s share of the spoils, it takes a village to create their wealth. I’m glad that in his excellent page-one story in today’s New York Times headlined “The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age” Louis Uchitelle includes steel baron Andrew Carnegie’s philosophy of wealth creation. You can read the story here.

    The story compares Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and other billionaires with the super wealthy of yesteryear. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the story is that it quotes David Nasaw, author of the book Andrew Carnegie as saying that Carnegie believed “individuals do not create wealth by themselves.” Andrew_carnegie This, according to Nasaw, was fundamental to Carnegie’s gospel of wealth. In Carnegie’s view, the community creates wealth and individuals like him are simply trustees of wealth. Therefore, Carnegie gave most of his wealth back to the community in the form of libraries, museums, cultural centers and foundations.

    Carnegie’s philosophy applies today to how companies create value. As I describe in The Culture of Collaboration book, companies in a variety of industries are achieving impressive results through collaboration. Among the organizations included in the book are Toyota, Boeing, The Dow Chemical Company, BMW, Industrial Light & Magic, DreamWorks Animation, Mayo Clinic, and the Myelin Repair Foundation. In each of these organizations, star culture takes a back seat to collaborative culture.

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  • Visual Collaboration and a Prosecution Dream Team

    I had lunch the other day with J. Christopher Anderson, part of the prosecution “dream team” recently honored with a “home run hitters award” from the National District Attorney’s Association. The award stems from the efforts of Chris and his colleagues in the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office in Ohio to solve a cold murder case.

    The case involved the stabbing death in 1980 of a Toledo nun. Prosecutors persuaded a jury last year to convict Toledo priest Gerald Robinson of the murder. During the trial, witnesses testified that Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was stabbed 31 times, including nine wounds shaped like an inverted cross and made through an altar cloth.

    Chris mentioned how he and his colleagues are using the SMART Board interactive whiteboard from SMART Technologies in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. SMART is particularly helpful in presenting scientific evidence-oriented cases such as the Gerald Robinson trial, because prosecutors can mix images, video and other digital files on the board and annotate the content to help juries understand their arguments. In one case, Chris says he used the SMART board to demonstrate through an animation how a bullet pierced a door.

    Using interactive whiteboards helps collaborators achieve common goals. For prosecutors, the goal is a conviction. While using an interactive whiteboard at a trial is more presentation-oriented, prosecutors can also use such tools more collaboratively while developing trial strategy. And many other occupations can enhance goal achievement and collaboration through interactive whiteboards. For engineers, the goal might be designing a world-class skyscraper or developing a more effective integrated circuit. For businesspeople, the goal might be penetrating a new market.

    When we talk about collaboration tools, we’re usually referring to tools that collaborators in different locations use. In The Culture of Collaboration book, I point out that as distance collaboration tools get better, our challenge is to collaborate as effectively in the same room as we do remotely. Interactive whiteboards address this issue. We can push content from our laptops to the boards, group write documents, work together on graphic design or presentations, and even edit videos together in the same room. The take-away is that collaboration should be as effective when we’re sharing the same physical space as it is when we’re geographically-dispersed.

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  • CEO’s Becoming Collaborative

    The word collaboration appeared nowhere in the excellent page-one story by Alan Murray headlined "After the Revolt, Creating a New CEO" (subscription required) in this past weekend’s edition of The Wall Street Journal. However, collaboration certainly plays in the background.

    The gist of the story is that the new crop of CEO’s running some of the world’s largest companies are less powerful, less arrogant, and more humble.  One example the story cites is Jim McNerney, CEO of Boeing who is “quick to point out the limits of his own power.” The story quotes McNerney as saying “I’m just one of eleven [board members] with a point of view.”

    Boeing is among the companies featured in The Culture of Collaboration book. The chapter on collaborative leadership discusses how organizations that create value through collaboration often develop and promote less autocratic and more responsive executives. This reinforces collaborative culture. Examples include Toyota, The Dow Chemical Company and the Mayo Clinic.

    Mayo regularly rotates its leaders including the CEO, who must keep practicing medicine while leading the organization. This keeps the CEO in touch with the trenches and collaborating with other doctors. Mayo, which was founded on principles of collaboration, has deftly integrated collaborative tools including videoconferencing, web conferencing and innovative messaging into its operations.

    Effective leadership has always required collaboration, but now collaborative leadership is in vogue.

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  • Virtual Enterprise Applies The Culture of Collaboration

    I am delighted to see that the principles covered in The Culture of Collaboration book are taking hold.

    Not a day goes by without somebody telling me how the book is helping his or her career, transforming a team or, in some cases, an enterprise. From an author’s perspective, it’s exciting and rewarding to see how organizations are creating value through the 10 Cultural Elements of Collaboration and the other principles that I wrote about in the book.

    This brings me to Wilson F. Engel III, Ph.D. Dr. Engel has posted a detailed review of the book on Epinions.com in which he describes how he and his colleagues read The Culture of Collaboration and successfully applied the principles to their global virtual enterprise.  According to Dr. Engel’s review, "In effect, we used every principle in Rosen’s book—which was required reading for our group—and the principles WORK!"

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  • Collaborative Leadership for Harvard

    In naming Drew Gilpin Faust its first female president, Harvard University is choosing a candidate who has never led a university. What Faust brings to the table, however, is scholarship and collaborative leadership. In Harvard’s news release and in countless news stories about the appointment, the adjective collaborative appears.

    Faust is the dean of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, the smallest of Harvard’s schools. Her collaborative approach appealed to the search committee which wants to heal the wounds of a campus divided by her predecessor, Larry Summers. Besides his controversial comments about women’s aptitude, Summers has been accused of having a controlling leadership style.

    Increasingly, organizations seek collaborative leaders. Dictating policy without inviting input into decisions is old news. Creating value requires putting aside titles and hierarchy. Real-time collaboration tools such as instant messaging and spontaneous web and videoconferencing support this shift by encouraging people regardless of title or function to solve problems, brainstorm and create value on the fly. I know one software company CIO who has ruffled some feathers by using IM regularly with people several levels down. But the organization’s culture is catching up with her collaborative leadership style.

    For any manager wondering whether collaborative leadership enhances careers, the story of Drew Gilpin Faust should provide at least a hint.

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