LEADING COLLABORATION

This course is offered both in an online (synchronous) format as well as in an in-person format. 

OVERVIEW

Leading Collaboration explores how individuals, teams, and organizations can work across differences, boundaries, and systems to achieve shared goals. In a world where knowledge is increasingly distributed across teams, organizations, and global networks, the ability to lead collaboration is essential for innovation, productivity, and meaningful change. The course’s central learning objective is to help students understand the conditions that enable effective collaboration and develop the practical skills and self-awareness to lead it.

COURSE CONTENT

Drawing on anthropology, neuroscience, sociology, and psychology, the course examines collaboration as a discipline in its own right. Students explore the roots of collaboration in human history and social learning, as well as the barriers that can undermine it, including silos, power dynamics, mistrust, unclear goals, competing incentives, and ineffective communication.

The course then turns to the practice of leading collaboration: dialogue and facilitation; psychological safety; group decision-making; organizational culture; management and project structures; change leadership; knowledge networks; strategic alliances; technology-enabled collaboration; and collaboration across cultures and global systems. Students will consider collaboration through the perspectives of both leaders and followers, with attention to how influence, accountability, and shared ownership shape collective action.

Learning takes place through interactive discussion, short presentations, case-based analysis, collaborative problem-solving exercises, and structured reflection. Students complete a group collaborative problem-solving exercise, an independent literature research project, and an ongoing reflective journal. These assignments build theoretical fluency while helping students apply course concepts to their own organizations, communities, and circles of influence.

LOGISTICS

This graduate-level required course is designed for students in Information & Knowledge Strategy but is open to other students at Columbia University. The course is offered in two modalities: an in-person, campu