Crossing the Divide

9

Boundaries Need Not Be Barriers

Leading Collaboration Among Groups in Decentralized Organizations

Heather M. Caruso Harvard University

Todd Rogers Harvard Business School

Max H. Bazerman Harvard Business School

MANY EMPLOYEES in decentralized organizations note that it is harder to work with other divisions or departments within their own organization than it is to work with outside suppliers or customers. In ordinary cases, this intraorganizational coordination failure can cost substantial sums of money. In other cases, these failures can be catastrophic, as was the case when various agencies in the U.S. intelligence community (notably the CIA and FBI) neglected to integrate knowledge of the looming threats that existed prior to September ...