Dr. Heidi Gardner examines time pressure, a top barrier to smart collaboration.

Breaking down silos and getting people to work across disciplines, what we call “smarter collaboration,” leads to a host of demonstrable benefits ranging from faster innovation to stronger employee engagement. But just because it’s advantageous doesn’t mean it’s always practiced. Our decade-plus of research at Harvard has unearthed a range of common barriers. This post is the first in a series focused on breaking down those obstacles to smarter collaboration.