You’ve probably been there. A new rollout, major project, or big strategic initiative is coming, and suddenly departments that have coexisted for years can’t seem to work together.
When that happens, we often start looking in the wrong direction.
We start by looking downward:
- Why won’t team members work with team members in another department?
- What are the process issues getting in the way?
- Would a re-organization help solve this?
- Is geographic separation causing this?
- Why can’t people just get along?
But the place to start is upward, at the leadership team.
Almost always, there is an overt or subtle trust issue that starts manifesting itself at the leadership team level. It could be as simple as two people on the leadership team that don’t trust each other, don’t get along, or don’t respect each other, and this is often the place to start.
Some questions I ask as part of my discovery process when presented with this problem include:
- How has the leadership team been working well together?
- Where is their tension or mistrust on the leadership team?
- Are there behaviors that are dysfunctional but have been tolerated?
- What do conversations look like in meetings?
- Do substantive conversations happen in meetings or side conversations?
- What has happened in the past?
This isn’t to be judgmental but to understand what’s really going on.
Because nothing changes until we are able to stare the sometimes ugly truth in the face.
Usually, the problem of departments not working together has been there all along, but it gets exposed through a system rollout, a big project, or a major strategic initiative. It’s often the case that we’ve known about the issue but haven’t had the conversations or done the work to address it.
The project isn’t creating the dysfunction, it’s exposing it.
That’s actually good because now you have a lever for cultural change. Now, departments must work together or the consequences are high.
So the first place to start is to focus on building trust between leaders. And that starts by saying the things we’ve been avoiding, addressing unresolved tension, and getting to know each other at a more personal level.
Because while there may very well be more work to do further down in the organization, departments rarely work well together when tension and mistrust remain unresolved at the leadership team level.
