Today we welcome back our premiere guest, Dr. Heidi K. Gardner. An economist by training, she is a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession and chair of the school’s Smarter Collaboration Master Class and Sector Leadership Master Class. In addition to these roles, she founded and runs her own consultancy, Gardner & Co. In our first conversation, we talked about her journey, how she got involved in studying the legal profession, and her bestselling book, Smart Collaboration, a data-driven look at the business case for effective collaboration. Now, Dr. Gardner has a new book, Smarter Collaboration, co-authored with Ivan Matviak. In this book, she builds on the concepts of smart collaboration with data, case studies, and ways to help leaders identify places where smarter collaboration is already happening—and take it to the next level.

Join us as we catch up with Dr. Gardner on what she has been doing since we last spoke, and explore why she was inspired to write her new book. We cover a wide range of topics: why we should continue to cultivate “serendipitous encounters” at work, how organizations can avoid the dangers of over-collaboration, and how they can better collaborate with outside parties such as consultants and vendors. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.