Despite our best efforts to create great teams and more flexible organizations, too many still look as territorial and bureaucratic as ever. That’s because we’ve overlooked the single most important leverage point for change: relationships.

No one today would dispute the idea that relationships matter. Flatter hierarchies, tighter interdependencies, efforts to move decision-making down in organizations all depend on the quality of people’s relationships.

Yet despite their importance, relationships remain largely a mystery. We know that relationships matter, but not exactly why or how. Like a firm’s culture, relationships are part of the informal side of organizational life: the soft stuff that’s hard to see, grasp, or change.

Based on over 25 years of research, Divide or Conquer remedies this problem by providing a navigational system with which to see and traverse—with far greater intelligence—that often unpredictable and sometimes treacherous terrain called “relationships.”

Whether you’re a senior executive or a new employee, Divide or Conquer shows you what it takes to succeed together.

To read chapter overviews, download the executive summary

 

Copyright ©2008 Diana McLain Smith