Ranjay Gulati [Archive.org URL]

a key distinction for managers to focus on is the one between coordination and cooperation.

Coordination—the ability to work together—involves the alignment of “hard” phenomena: activities, processes, and information. Most companies begin with this and simply assume that mandating shared tasks and information exchange will suffice. It does to a degree but can be severely limiting in how much firms can achieve. At best, they are able to respond in a somewhat coordinated fashion when customers come to them. What they don’t get is proactive development of new ideas that can be taken to the market before the market comes to them. To achieve this loftier goal, you need the second half of collaboration, which is cooperation.

Cooperation—the willingness to work together—involves the alignment of “soft” phenomena: goals, attitudes, and behaviors, people-related issues. Most companies focus on coordination among silos and pay insufficient attention to encouraging employees to cooperate. And when they do consider cooperation, they rely too heavily on incentives alone as the panacea. Those who get it right recognize that changing behavior requires a multipronged effort that ultimately shifts the culture of the organization.

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