Collaboration in corporate America, where divisional silos and suboptimization can be a real problem, can be a significant challenge. As a collaboration specialist, I would like to offer you ten ways to overcome suboptimization within divisions, promote joint efforts, and ensure everyone is focused on the same page, aligned with overall corporate goals. The same holds further down the organization, with silos within divisions, groups, or individuals competing for priorities and goals. So, what can be done to promote collaboration? Here are ten ideas.
- Collaboration starts at the top
Leaders have to lead the change. Change must begin at the top of the organization, whether it is the entire entity, a division, or a subunit with multiple silos. Leadership must set the stage for overall goals and expectations. Identifying and breaking down barriers, while focusing on the shared mission, are essential. Breaking down barriers require work, understanding, and commitment to clear written expectations for subordinates. You can anticipate that not everyone will be on board. As you implement the change, you may reinforce compliance with acknowledgment and rewards, and doubters and drifters will see that they, too, can be part of the collaborative effort. Make the effort to highlight the improvements you see.
- Shared mission, vision, and goals
Success is only achieved if everyone is on board and understands the mission, vision, and goals. How do mission, vision, and goals manifest in each division, and how are divisions reinforced to work together to ensure collaboration? How are problems between divisions addressed? Expectations for collaboration between divisions have to be reinforced. Think, for example, of research, manufacturing, and sales -- all with sub-optimal goals. If these three groups are not working together, their disunity can be very costly when the sales force makes promises that manufacturing cannot deliver, and research has not yet been implemented for manufacturing.
- Clear, timely communication
Clear communication is needed day to day, with periodic joint meetings held to address concerns. These meetings need to address what is working, what is not working, what we need to keep doing, what we need to start doing, and what we need to stop doing to promote collaboration? Meetings need to be scheduled, and agendas sent out in a draft form ahead of time, which can be revised at the start of the meeting if necessary. During the meeting encourage honest communication and feedforward. Feedforward focuses on learning from past mistakes and what we will do in the future. It avoids finding blame and pointing out the people who caused trouble. Pointing the blame toward oneself or others is counterproductive. Be as transparent as possible, promoting trust, and listening to what others have to offer. Commitment to transparency goes a long way toward fostering clear and timely communication.
- Create spaces to share ideas
Besides physical get-togethers in periodic meetings, consider virtual meetings, informal ways to partner, digital tools, spontaneous interactions, dedicated channels, and other means to share ideas. Not all ideas are good ideas, but all ideas need to be heard. Encourage ideas and foster creativity. Foster workshops to help others understand the roles of different silos. Share ideas and concerns. Build stronger connections between teams through team-building exercises that cut across silos. Making this effort will help build relationships, innovation, and unity.
- Listen
Everyone wants to be heard and listened to. Consider establishing peer groups across departments to discuss their work and share ideas and insights. Make a point of having members share what they are doing, even if it appears there is no direct correlation between members. Knowing what they know encourages them to consider others' perspectives and share things they think the other party might find interesting and useful. Recognize those who take the initiative to find and share ideas that may foster improvements with those in other areas.
- Establish temporary teams
What are common concerns? Have a session where employees can brainstorm ideas to address common concerns. Take those ideas, have a peer group prioritize the ideas, and select 1 to 3 people for a temporary team to work on over time. Develop an action plan for the team to work on the task, allocating up to 10% of their work time over several months. This will enable them to come back with a white paper that others can use to achieve consistent results in a specific activity. This is one example of how it could be accomplished.
- Have team leaders meet periodically
Team leaders are critical to success. Bring team leaders together periodically to discuss what is working, what is not, and what needs to be addressed going forward. Make this a feedforward-type meeting without blame. Instead, focus on what we have learned and what we will do in the future to be successful. As this process gains traction at every level, everyone will soon be focused on feedforward rather than feedback. The keywords are “we” and “forward”.
- Explore the supply chain and interdepartmental dependencies
How do things get done? Who does what? Why? What are our current systems? Could we take one system at a time and examine it to understand why we do what we do? Once we do that, could we explore other ways to do it? If we have various supply chain issues or interdepartmental dependencies, talking about the bottlenecks or snags may allow us to find creative ways to improve things. It is worth looking into.
- Encourage shared ownership and independence
Write annual commitments and encourage others to have ownership of the commitment to working together. Set goals that extend beyond individual departments and instead focus on shared goals and objectives. Make collaboration a cultural mainstay by encouraging, promoting, and recognizing effort and accomplishments. Catch employees and departments going out of their way to ensure a better product across department lines.
- Explore strengths and capitalize on them
As you consider actions, pause to reflect on the strengths of various participants. Always make use of individual strengths. If people need help identifying and exploring strengths, consider StrengthsFinder offered through Gallup. By recognizing strengths and providing opportunities that align with individual strengths both within and across departments, it is more likely that you will enhance collaboration.
To learn more about my publications on collaboration, conflict resolution, or enhancing your servant manager skills, which focus on leading by serving and understanding the needs of your team members, feel free to reach out.
For more information on collaboration, check out The Collaboration Effect.