Collaborative leadership is about delivering results across boundaries. The nature of that boundary is important, whether it's a formal contract or an informal agreement between two parties to work together for a common aim. And leaders need to be clear about where the boundary lies and how to use the different capabilities on either side of it to build a positive and efficient relationship. As the poet Robert Frost once put it, 'Good fences make good neighbours'.
Getting value from difference is at the heart of the collaborative leader's task. But that is not without its challenges. As in many marriages, it is often this difference - in skills, experience, resources or culture - that attracts organisations to work together in the first place. Then, as time goes by, people start to rail against that very difference and try to remove it wherever it causes frustration in the joint operation. An often-heard criticism is 'Why can't they be more like us?'. But of course the truth is that if they were, you'd have lost the very reason that brought the two of you together.
So, collaborative leaders have to pull off a tricky balancing act - on the one hand, respecting and valuing the differences of a partner, while on the other, smoothing out some of those differences in the interests of making the relationship work more efficiently. At the same time, leaders have to learn to share control, and to trust a partner to deliver, even though that partner may operate very differently from themselves. Collaborative leadership is a sophisticated art - but mastering this complexity lies at the heart of business success now and in the future.

* Covers a growing area of importance for HR professionals and leaders, especially within public sector organizations
* The book's authors are highly experienced in working at the leading edge of many complex partnership projects
* Gives managers and HR professionals practical advice on how to manage sensitive collaborative relationships...

If you think that global warming means slightly hotter weather and a modest rise in sea levels that will persist only so long as fossil fuels hold out (or until we decide to stop burning them), think again. In The Long Thaw, David Archer, one of the world's leading climatologists, predicts that if we continue to emit carbon dioxide we may eventually cancel the next ice age and raise the oceans by 50 meters. By comparing the global warming projection for the next century to natural climate changes of the distant past, and then looking into the future far beyond the usual scientific and political horizon of the year 2100, Archer reveals the hard truths of the long-term climate forecast.

Archer shows how just a few centuries of fossil-fuel use will cause not only a climate storm that will last a few hundred years, but dramatic climate changes that will last thousands. Carbon dioxide emitted today will be a problem for millennia. For the first time, humans have become major players in shaping the long-term climate. In fact, a planetwide thaw driven by humans has already begun. But despite the seriousness of the situation, Archer argues that it is still not too late to avert dangerous climate change--if humans can find a way to cooperate as never before.

Revealing why carbon dioxide may be an even worse gamble in the long run than in the short, this compelling and critically important book brings the best long-term climate science to a general audience for the first time.

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