Jumia Books Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don't Agree with or Like or Trust  by Adam Kahane 

"Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don't Agree with or Like or Trust" by Adam Kahane explores the challenge of collaborating effectively with people who hold opposing views, whom we might dislike or distrust. Drawing on over 30 years of experience facilitating high-stakes collaborations worldwide, Kahane introduces a new approach called "stretch collaboration." This method embraces conflict, experimentation, and personal transformation rather than seeking artificial harmony or consensus.

Key insights include:

Collaboration is necessary even in deeply divided or polarized contexts, from global challenges like climate change to everyday organizational conflicts.

Traditional collaboration myths—like the need for harmony or full control—are rejected in favor of embracing messy realities, uncertainty, and disagreement as opportunities for genuine co-creation.

Stretch collaboration involves three core practices: embracing both conflict and connection, experimenting with adaptive solutions, and changing one's own approach instead of trying to change others.

Effective collaboration requires balancing the complementary forces of power (assertion) and love (engagement), alternating these drives as needed.

The process demands self-awareness, humility, vulnerability, and a willingness to coexist with discomfort for meaningful progress.