Many professional service firms today face a serious dilemma. Clients are demanding more sophisticated service for complex problems that can only be delivered by interdisciplinary teams of experts. No one consultant or lawyer--or even one functional group--can guide a client through today's challenges, which often span technological, regulatory, economic, and environmental issues on an increasingly global scale. The problem is, most firms have narrowly defined practice areas and partners with specialized expertise. These siloed experts are often "stars" who have built their reputations and client rosters independently, not by working with peers. What's more, most firms have grown so large and so fast that their members can't even know--let alone trust--their colleagues around the world. In Smart Collaboration, Heidi Gardner shows that a much more profitable--albeit difficult--path is to push the firm toward cross-partner collaboration. Gardner, a former McKinsey consultant and Harvard

"Market volatility. Sustainability demands. Opportunities and hazards of fast-changing technology and regulations. The challenges for companies in a VUCA world are more daunting than ever. How can we collaborate in our organizations-and with outside partners-to solve problems, innovate, and succeed? In her bestselling first book, Smart Collaboration, Heidi K. Gardner brought her years of research and experience at Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School, and McKinsey to the thorny problem of how to collaborate in professional service firms. Her key insight: firms that collaborate across silos generate higher revenues and profits, innovate faster, build stronger client relationships, and attract and retain better talent. The book quickly became the go-to resource on collaboration for PSFs. Since then, Gardner has engaged with tens of thousands of senior business leaders from around the world. Turns out that the challenge of smart collaboration exists far more broadly, in organizatio