Book Reviews : Robbms, Harvey. Turf Wars Moving From Competition to Collaboration Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1990. 224 pages. ($24.95

Date01 April 1990
Published date01 April 1990
DOI10.1177/0734371X9001000206
AuthorRene-Marc Mangin
Subject MatterArticles
77
Book
Reviews
Robbms,
Harvey.
Turf
Wars
Moving
From
Competition
to
Collaboration
Glenview,
Illinois:
Scott,
Foresman
and
Company,
1990. 224
pages.
($24.95).
This
book
is
part
of
the
Scott,
Foresman
and
Company,
Executive
Excellence
Series
and
was
written
with
the
intention
of
&dquo;enhancing
teamwork
and
a
spirit
of
collaboration
between
teams&dquo;
in
organizations.
The
author
is
a
practicing
industrial
psychologist
and
delivers
his
message
in
short,
easy-to-
read
and
easily
assimilated
chapters
containing
entertaining
anecdotes
and
plentiful
illustrations
drawn
from
his
experiences
with
private
corporations.
The
book
is
organized
into
seven
parts,
respectively
titled
as
follows:
The
High
Cost
of
Turfism;
Causes
of
Turfism;
Who We
Are,
Who
They
Are;
The
Four
Stages
of
Team-Building;
Hard
Cases;
Lead
Us
Not
into
Turfism;
and
finally,
Rx
for
Turfism.
While
the
book’s
primary
focus
is
on
the
private
sec-
tor,
the
conditions
and
intervention
strategies
are
readily
applicable
to
the
public
sector.
Turf
Wars
is
most
timely
in
a
period
when
deficit
reduction
holds
stage
on
the
national
political
agenda.
The
defense
of
one’s
turf
is
always
a
more
criti-
cally
felt
need
under
circumstances
of
a
fixed
or
even
shrinking
revenue
base
in
government.
Its
focus
on
cross-functional
teams
is
also
well
taken
given
the
importance
of
these
elements
in
contemporary
organizations.
Cross-func-
tional
teams
are
groups
of
employees
who
are
brought
together
within
an
organization
representing
various,
often
specialized
units
(e.g.,
finance,
legal,
engineering,
and
planning).
They
are
usually
critical
to
the
development
of
new
products
or
processes,
or
the
revitalization
of
existing
projects
or
pro-
grams
facing
changing
markets,
tough
competition
or
declining
budgets.
Robbins
does
not
provide
a
clear
definition
of
cross-functional
teams,
a
fact
which
reveals
a
primary
problem
with
this
book.
In
an
effort
to
make
this
book
more
appealing
to
the
general
public,
Robbins
has
made
the
book
diffi-
cult
to
use
as
a
reference.
The
target
audience
for
this
book
is
unclear.
Though
its
style
should
appeal
to
the
general
public,
the
content
is
likely
to
be
more
useful
to
corporate
executives,
organizational
development
consultants,
and
mediators
or
facilita-
tors.
Nevertheless,
there
is
a
great
deal
of
useful
information,
including
an
elegant
analytical
diagnostic
model
based
on
the
use
of
four
separate
psycho-
logical
tests
used
in
teambuilding
exercises.
The
interesting
ways
the
tests
relate
to
one
another,
and
the
power
of
their
use
in
combination
to
reveal
dif-
ferences
in
people,
is
clearly
and
succinctly
explained;
unfortunately,
how
to
administer
the
tests
to
a
group
of
would-be
team
members
is
not.
Scholars
of
public
administration
should
find
this
book
useful,
primarily
on
a
conceptual
level.
Although
Turf
Wars
does
not
specifically
address
negotia-
tion,
or
labor-management
issues for
that
matter,
it
provides
some
important

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