Ken Thompson

A Systematic Guide to Collaboration and Competition within organizations Ken Thompson

We expect our organizational leaders and managers to be competent in collaboration and competition. However, truly exceptional leaders are masters of collaboration and competition at the same time, within the same projects and even within the same teams. These Interplay Leaders understand the subtle yet continuous interplay of collaboration and competition necessary for a project's success. The central argument of this book is that the current unspoken assumption in organizational leadership and management that all projects are either collaborative or competitive but never both is fatally flawed and produces, at best, sub-optimal results and at worst total failures. I discuss why I believe this 'single dynamic' mindset has gripped organizations by first reviewing the literature and then examining the etymology of the words "collaborate" and "compete." I then look to biology, war, politics and sport to show that this division between collaboration and competition is artificial and not a natural state of affairs. I propose a new understanding of how these two activities, collaboration and competition, fundamentally interplay and suggest two new hybrid dynamics "Edgy Collaboration" and "Eco Competition" which organizational teams can recognise and employ. I also identify and describe 9 practical disciplines/skills for mastering the Collaborate/Compete "Interplay":1. Qualification2. Teaming3. Game Mapping4. Scorecards5. Reputation6. Alliancing7. Principled Negotiating8. Decision-Making9. Course CorrectionsI conclude by discussing how learning/simulation games can assist in building the skills needed to succeed in Interplay and describe 3 real on-line team game examples which explore the new interplay dynamics experientially and socially