How to know if you're drawing, crossing or blurring the lines ...

Sometimes it’s hard to know the right thing to do when communicating across departments or locations. There are constant realities you’re navigating through…

• Personal Conflict. Each group attracts different personalities, skill sets and vocabularies. Sometimes these differences make it hard for stakeholders to understand each other so they avoid each other. When stakeholders aren't speaking to each other, it makes it very difficult to communicate effectively. 
• Extra Time. It’s time consuming to share important information with others. Under pressure to demonstrate more results quickly, people don’t take the time to communicate.
• Willy Nilly Crucials. It’s common to document processes and policies, but too often organizations lack clarity in defining what information needs to be shared between departments. 

Be sure to focus energy on the items in the proactive column to effectively work around these realities.

REACTIVE…

PROACTIVE…

Over communicate. Everybody doesn’t need to be in on everything. When all lines of communication are open to everyone, communication declines. Obsess about content. The organization around your message—emotional, environment, ritual, political—is crucial. It can reinforce your content or kill it. Rob the white space. When we’re eager to fix move too fast. Creating margin for listening, self-awareness and reflection is necessary to discover what really matters to other people.

Identify what’s really needed. Each department should develop a list of the kind of need-to-know (versus nice-to-know) information they feel is lacking from other departments.  Invest in team time for leaders.  Focus on relationships between department heads. Team building between a handful of key people can dramatically improve how well the whole staff works together. Apply the JFK principle. Ask not what other departments can do for you. Ask what you can do for other departments. Lead the way by sharing insight with other teams on a regular basis.

NOTE: This post originated from a hodgepodge of notes I’ve collected on this subject. I don’t remember where everything came from, but some of it was inspired by this book and this article.

Comments

[Blane Young]

Thanks, this is a great resource!

I would love to hear several stories on how these principles played out in your context at GCC.

[Kim G.]

I'm curious how you've seen this play out in your multi-site model. Do you have any stories to share of things that have worked or failed in these areas?