Attendees at last week’s greaterthan > conference were treated to a brief but poignant talk by Maine’s former Governor, Angus King. Noting the challenges of our current times, he echoed the words Abraham Lincoln used during some of the darkest days of the Civil War, “The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion.”

The Greater Than Conference focused on using partnership and collaboration among four sectors – business, NGOs, government, and academia – to solve the complex issues of our world especially those related to sustainability and economic growth. Gov. King’s challenge to all present was to break with traditional ways of approaching such complexity and create new solutions. What was unsaid was that if partnering and collaboration were to be the way forward, the definition of an organization is changing.

We are in a time of a dynamic transformation in the way business is done. As Peter Drucker observed 10 years ago, the corporation as we know it is fading away. In its place, the collaborative network is emerging. In spite of the magnitude of this change, too many people lack a good understanding of what a collaborative network is, how it functions, and what differentiates between person to person collaboration and collaboration amongst a network of organizations.

The management philosophy, strategies, and models that served us well in the last half of the 20^th Century are not what is needed to grow and succeed in the 21^st Century. Sure, many CEOs and other business leaders recognize that siloed, hierarchical structures need to give way to more collaborative ways of working, but most admit that it is neither achieved nor realized in their organizations. The disconnect between what is said and the reality of what is happening points to a need for a dramatic, fundamental shift in ways of thinking, acting, relating, interacting, working, and managing. Most simply, to innovate and succeed organizations not only need a specialized expertise; they need a collaborative capability.

We’re still in the early days of acknowledging the fundamental transformation in organization structures and ways of working and managing. Collaborative networks are not a management concept du jour. It isn’t another change initiative that can be ignored until it goes away. Only a collaborative network has the capital, capacity, and expertise required to take on the complex, major challenges of our time – be it reducing the energy wasted in the chip manufacturing process or feeding the world’s poor or stemming the spread of swine flu. As Lincoln so eloquently expressed “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”