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January 25, 2020

How interdepartmental collaboration can be improved in cool and unique ways

How interdepartmental collaboration can be improved in cool and unique ways.

There’s a BIG problem in how businesses work today—a problem serious enough to stop work productivity dead in its tracks.

Yet, few seem to be aware of it, let alone find a solution.

Business departments are not collaborating as well as they should be.

“Yeah, no one’s working together but we’re still selling well and meeting KPIs. I don’t see what’s wrong here.”

If happier and more hard-working employees, significantly improved work performance, and increased revenue are things your business doesn’t need, then you can forget about fostering innovation.

I trust you are in the majority of leaders who want to see his or her business succeed. If that’s the case, I urge you to read on and find out what’s really disrupting interdepartmental collaboration—and how you can fix the problem.

The silo mentality

Silos are used in farms to separate different types of grains from each other. They’re wonderful inventions of machinery for agriculture, not so much for businesses.

The silo mentality can seep into business departments and affect teamwork and collaboration severely. How this materializes is that departments start to hoard valuable information and become reluctant to share it across the company.

This could happen for a multitude of reasons including power struggles, lack of belief in other team members, and poor communication practices.

The silo mentality is a serial killer of work performance.

It destroys trust and relationships when employees are reluctant to communicate with each other. Businesses cannot take advantage of golden opportunities because they don’t have enough data to make informed decisions.

Customers lose faith due to deteriorating customer service and product quality.

The problem is, it’s tricky to find out if the silo mentality is plaguing your business until something bad happens.

There are several telltale signs to be aware of in determining whether your team members are affected by the issue.

Fragmented decision making

Teams in silos make decisions for the sake of their respective departments rather than the company.

Departments want the best for themselves and don’t see a reason to address the needs of other business units.

Lack of responsibility leading to a blame culture

There is no clear indicator of who is responsible for what in completing company tasks. Project responsibilities float around departments without any sense of ownership.

If something does not go as planned, it’s always Employee X or Department Y’s fault, never themselves.

Non-existent innovation

Businesses may find themselves stuck in a rut innovation-wise. IT systems are still working on Windows XP. Department heads find themselves working overnight on stacks of paperwork.

There is seemingly a resistance to adopting new technologies and innovative systems that make work easier and more enjoyable.

Resistance to change is such an ever-present problem in businesses that the Harvard Business Review has an article on how to overcome it… back in 1969.

Incoherent company vision

Executives and department leaders have different views on how the business should move forward. For example, the sales team is demanding a new CRM tool but the CEO sees no reason to since sales are already going through the roof with the old CRM.

In other words, there is a clash in vision between the ones at the top of the organizational chart and employees who are doing the majority of the work.

Now that you know what’s causing the silo mentality, what can you do to overcome it and inspire collaboration across all business units?

Build a culture of empathy

Empathy is the key to effective interdepartmental collaboration.

You should encourage teams to take on the role of other departments for a day or two. By learning about other people’s work, your employees will be able to look at their colleagues from a different, more insightful perspective.

They can even pitch in ideas from their own experiences to solve the problems of other departments which is one of the most cited benefits of good interdepartmental collaboration.

Can you make someone who is not empathetic, be more empathetic? Of course not.

But, you’re building a culture, not forcing individuals to change their personalities. When you establish a culture of empathy, employees will collaborate by themselves with other business units, no matter who they are.

You don’t need to herd them around like sheep — that’s the power of good company culture.

Tell employees why it’s important to collaborate

Give your team members a clear and relevant cause to be passionate about — why should they collaborate?

When your employees are passionate about the vision and purpose you bring forward, they will collaborate.

The best way to drive this motivation is by telling your team members what they stand to gain from collaborating well with other departments.

It could be fat bonuses, extended leave, a higher chance of getting promoted. Whatever it is, make the purpose of collaboration important and reward employees for their efforts.

Revamp communication procedures and policies

If you’re reading this, your company’s communication procedures are likely to be outdated and inefficient. It’s time to change.

Remove all the dumb rules that impede collaboration in the first place. One common rule that should be banished forever is being able to contact other employees only at a certain time in the day or with a certain communication medium (read: emails only). Never do that.

Don’t be afraid to embrace technology. There are tons of collaboration technologies today that help your employees communicate and collaborate a lot faster than back and forth emails. Slack, Trello, and Jira are some examples of tools that are being used by many leading companies today to great success, which your business can pick up.

Make sure the workstations are working properly and glitch-free, so they support the tools you use for your business needed to enable efficient collaboration. The last thing you’d want is a piece of shoddy software with features that are merely nice-to-haves.

Communication policies should also be revamped depending on what your business needs.

Generally, communication policies should facilitate open and non-hostile interaction between employees while also enabling the free flow of information between departments.

For example, your policy can clarify who to contact in urgent times or how team members should communicate with each other daily (e.g. team chats or face-to-face meetings?)

Lead by example

The final tip is arguably the most important solution in overcoming the silo mentality.

Leaders must embrace whatever change they want to see in their companies. If you want your team members to practice the pillars of successful collaboration, you should be doing the same. Always lead by example.

Inspiring collaboration across all business departments is achievable only if you overcome the silo mentality that is affecting communication and information sharing.

Practice the tips mentioned above and your team will be working seamlessly with each other in no time.

— Lisa Michaels is a freelance writer, editor and a thriving content marketing consultant from Portland. Being self-employed, she does her best to stay on top of the current trends in business and tech. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter.

• Posted 1.25.20 at 05:55 am by Roy Osing
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