Leading Across Boundaries: Creating Collaborative Agencies in a Networked World

An Approach for Dealing with Difficult People and Situations in Collaboration

Think about the two fundamental human needs discussed in Chapter One: mastery—to be competent at something (and appreciated for it)—and belonging—to be part of something larger than oneself. In my experience, many of the people problems teams experience when working across boundaries are caused when one or both of these needs aren’t being met. There were many factors that reduced JIVA’s success, but the major one had to do with several middle managers’ perceptions that the JIVA teams threatened these two needs. That shouldn’t have surprised us.

After all, JIVA failed to offer middle managers any role in the initiative. They didn’t have a seat at the table and had ...