By the coauthor of the classic How to Make Meetings Work (more than 600,000 copies sold) and the originator of many of the most popular group decision-making methods
Describes five time-tested principles for making collaborative efforts more effective, efficient, and even joyful
Offers examples from Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit organizations, and communities to illustrate the principles in action
Every day we work with others to solve problems and make decisions, but the experience is often stressful, frustrating, and inefficient. In How to Make Collaboration Work, David Straus, a pioneer in the field of group problem solving, introduces five principles of collaboration that have been proven successful time and again in nearly every conceivable setting.
Straus draws on his thirty years of personal and professional experience to show how these principles have been applied by organizations as diverse as Ford Motor Company, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston Public Schools, Kaiser Permanente, the city of Denver, and many others.
How to Make Collaboration Work shows how collaboration can become a joy rather than a chore-a kind of chemical reaction that releases far more energy than it consumes.
2023
2013
A huge part of our economy is invisible, invaluable, and under siege. This book describes a growing movement to recognize and defend the commons on many fronts: community initiatives, legal actions, and visionary proposals.
A huge part of our economy is invisible, invaluable, and under siege. "The commons" is a term that denotes everything we share as opposed to own privately. Some parts of the commons are gifts of nature: the air and oceans, the web of species, wilderness, and watersheds. Others are the product of human creativity and endeavor: sidewalks and public squares, the Internet, our languages, cultures, technologies, and infrastructure. In graceful and down-to-earth prose, Jonathan Rowe illuminates the scale and value of the commons, its symbiotic relationship with the rest of the economy, its importance to our personal and planetary well-being, and how it is threatened by privatization and neglect.
Rowe also describes a growing movement to recognize and defend the commons on many fronts: community initiatives, legal actions, and visionary proposals such as a "sky trust" to charge polluters and distribute the proceeds to all of us. Simple gestures can be powerful too: Rowe relates how he set some benches in a vacant lot and watched a public gathering space take shape.
For decades, people have defended the commons and not known it. They've battled pollution, development, corporate marketing assaults on their kids, and many other attacks on common wealth. What's been missing is a story that unifies all these seemingly unrelated battles with the force of a powerful idea. This is what Jonathan Rowe provides in this thought-provoking book.
A huge part of our economy is invisible, invaluable, and under siege. "The commons" is a term that denotes everything we share as opposed to own privately. Some parts of the commons are gifts of nature: the air and oceans, the web of species, wilderness, and watersheds. Others are the product of human creativity and endeavor: sidewalks and public squares, the Internet, our languages, cultures, technologies, and infrastructure. In graceful and down-to-earth prose, Jonathan Rowe illuminates the scale and value of the commons, its symbiotic relationship with the rest of the economy, its importance to our personal and planetary well-being, and how it is threatened by privatization and neglect.
Rowe also describes a growing movement to recognize and defend the commons on many fronts: community initiatives, legal actions, and visionary proposals such as a sky trust to charge polluters and distribute the proceeds to all of us. Simple gestures can be powerful too: Rowe relates how he set some benches in a vacant lot and watched a public gathering space take shape.
For decades, people have defended the commons and not known it. Theyve battled pollution, development, corporate marketing assaults on their kids, and many other attacks on common wealth. Whats been missing is a story that unifies all these seemingly unrelated battles with the force of a powerful idea. This is what Jonathan Rowe provides in this thought-provoking book.