Russ Lindens three-part opus on creating a culture of collaboration in public sector agenciesa detailed roadmap for overcoming the ill-effects of sprawling, bureaucratic silos and stovepipesoffers a comprehensive practitioners toolkit for bringing agility and accountability back into the public managers playbook.

The author begins by identifying two over arching barriers to collaboration:

• the fragmented nature of our government organization structures

• the highly individualistic nature of the organizational culture bearers.

As he drills down into the DNA of our public bureaucracies created over the past two centuries, Linden offers up user-friendly templates to navigate these murky waters.

Much of the book brings to mind the distinction between bureaucracy and adhocracy, which Alvin Toffler drew four decades ago in Future Shock and amplified 10 years later in The Third Wave. In the latter attempt to illuminate the future, Toffler refers to the inter-weave problem of second wave, industrial-age government organizations that are woven into narrowly-defined, anachronistic structures.

Further, these out-of-date arrangements cultivate bureaucratic behavior that invariably leads to jurisdictional power struggles, externalization of costs (each agency attempting to solve its own problems at the expense of another), and to the generation of adverse side effects. Oddly enough, Toffler found that the fix for the inter-weave problem has been further centralizationnaming a czar to cut through the red tape. Yikes; does that still have a familiar ring in 2010?

Collaborative Foundations

Lindens masterful treatise sheds light on an alternative fixreplete with best practice case illustrations from across a highly decentralized landscape.

The first five chapters (Part I) of the book address the compelling challenges in todays fragmented environment that make collaboration obligatory. Here, the author describes the puts and takes of collaborationpersonal and organizational impediments and the vital necessity of forging aheadand offers a seven point collaborative framework that informs all that follows.

Linden also uses a varied range of examples drawn largely from public sector experience that help bring each of the seven critical elements to life:

• shared interest or purpose

• will to participate now and willingness to contribute

• appropriate people at the table

• an open, credible process

• passionate champion(s) with credibility and clout

• trusting relationships among partners use of collaborative leadership skills.

The author draws from his repertoire of poignant real-life case studies to demonstrate how change agents in each setting employ different elements of the suggested framework to achieve a desired outcome. Rich organizational examples that help explicate how these elements are used in combination with one another include:

• University of Californiaincrease graduate student diversity

• Southeast Asia non-governmental organizationsto develop rural water sanitation facilities critical to improved health

• local law enforcement agency in the Maryland-Virginia areato quickly locate and bring into its custody a missing 12-year-old girl

• interagency emergency responders at the Pentagon and nearbylocal government police and fire departmentsto save lives and deal with the immediate and short-term devastation of 9/11

• Jamestown, New York, Strategic Planning & Partnership Commissionto revive its economic and community fortunes that had slipped significantly from former times

• U.S. Coast Guardto respond to urgent search and rescue needs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

• Charlottesville, Virginia, Child Advocacy Coalitionto promote interagency cooperation on related initiatives.

Process and People Issues

Having begun to address the challenge of a fragmented industrialage organizational structure in Part I, the author shifts gears in Part II (chapters six through 10) to shed light on the highly individualistic behavior of the people who comprise these bureaucracies. One of the key riddles Linden poses is: How do we get individuals representing different organizational agendas to move from me to wewhile still honoring the parochial interest they were sent to represent?

Again, the author offers copious case illustrations of collaborative public sector projects and initiatives, buttressed by conceptual discussions of what seem to be the underlying principles and factors that relate to these people-oriented solutions.

Dont be surprised by an encore performance from some of the same organizations introduced in Part I, such as the University of California and the Jamestown, New York, Strategic Planning & Partnership Commission.

But here, were also introduced to other innovative and (adhocratic) organizations that may be part of this millenniums third wave, including:

• Interagency Network of Enterprise Assistance Providers (INEAP)a public-private partnership led by the U.S. Department of Commerce, which along with other federal departments and agencies assists small manufacturers in the United States in its dealings with government and nonprofit structures at different levels

• U.S. Pacific Command-led intelligence agency liaison teamthat developed an initial skills and experience inventory and matrix for all members the University of Virginia Institute for Environmental Negotiations; along with public health advocates forged common ground with tobacco growers, received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and initiated the Virginia Tobacco Communities Project, which subsequently led to funding of the six-state Southern Tobacco Communities Project and even more significant federal legislation to regulate tobacco and improve public health

• Neighbors for Joint Development in the Galilee (Israel) a joint planning venture to improve communication and collaboration between Jewish and Arab villages to address such common needs as: access to water and sanitation, better roads, recreational and social facilities, economic development and employment

• Baltimore County Child Advocacy Center (Maryland)a collaboration between social workers and police to prevent, provide treatment, and apprehend offenders in the area of child abuse

• U.S. Defense Intelligence Agencys Joint Intelligence Virtual Architecture (JIVA)an initiative to foster information sharing and collaboration across a large, fragmented multi-agency community

• Integrated Air Defense System (IADS)virtual teams from defense, intelligence, and related agencies who got together in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War to analyze our enemies air defense systems.

Sustainable Collaboration

Part III of Lindens book (chapters 1114) returns to the now legendary fragmentation in public bureaucraciesthe stovepipes, silos, and increasingly insular occupational groupings that pervade the governmental landscape.

The big question here is: How can we create systems, methods, rewards, and structures that foster truly collaborative organizational cultures?

The author exploresagain with many case illustrations, detailed analytic frameworks, and conceptual modelsthe benefits and ways and means of co-location.

Some examples:

• Baltimores CompStat approach and Washington States variation on the stat theme

• web strategies for improving stakeholder collaboration

• the leadership development needed to create tomorrows collaborative cultures.

What More?

If by now youre wondering what aspect of collaboration Russ Linden hasnt explored, my answer is, Practically none. However, if theres one topic that gets only scant mention, its the strategic role that training and development plays in these out-of-the-box fixes.

This is true of both the authors many case study successes, as well as the spot-on lists of critical elements, factors, and principles that track with each collaboration challenge.

Im not sure whether trainings absence is due to the failure of project managers to include the training community (another one of the organization sub-cultures, usually buried under the HR function) in their planning efforts or simply an oversight in mentioning this asset in the toolkit. I suspect theres a treasure trove of workplace learning solutions embedded in this book for public sector trainers willing to take the plunge.