For example, someone from R&D will spend weeks unsuccessfully trying to get help from manufacturing to run a few tests on a new prototype. First, the most critical breakdowns in collaboration typically occur not on actual teams but in the rapid and unstructured interactions between different groups within the organization.
Unfortunately, such workshops are usually the right solution to the wrong problems. Workshops will offer techniques for getting groups aligned around common goals, for clarifying roles and responsibilities, for operating according to a shared set of behavioral norms, and so on. So they’ll get the HR department to run hundreds of managers and their subordinates through intensive two- or three-day training programs. Many companies think that teamwork training is the way to promote collaboration across an organization. (See the sidebar “The Three Myths of Collaboration.”) The Three Myths of CollaborationĬompanies attempt to foster collaboration among different parts of their organizations through a variety of methods, many based on a number of seemingly sensible but ultimately misguided assumptions: Effective collaboration means “teaming.” While such initiatives yield the occasional success story, most of them have only limited impact in dismantling organizational silos and fostering collaboration-and many are total failures. They restructure their organizations and reengineer their business processes. Time and again we have seen management teams employ the same few strategies to boost internal cooperation. But despite the billions of dollars spent on initiatives to improve collaboration, few companies are happy with the results. Getting collaboration right promises tremendous benefits: a unified face to customers, faster internal decision making, reduced costs through shared resources, and the development of more innovative products. Instead, most must work with and through people across the organization, many of whom have different priorities, incentives, and ways of doing things. Meanwhile, as competitive pressures continually force companies to find ways to do more with less, few managers have the luxury of relying on their own dedicated staffs to accomplish their objectives. To offer solutions tailored to customers’ needs, you increasingly need collaboration between product and service groups. To improve customer satisfaction, you increasingly need collaboration among functions ranging from R&D to distribution. To service multinational accounts, you increasingly need seamless collaboration across geographic boundaries. The challenge is a long-standing one for senior managers: How do you get people in your organization to work together across internal boundaries? But the question has taken on urgency in today’s global and fast-changing business environment. Together they constitute a framework for effectively managing discord, one that integrates conflict resolution into day-to-day decision-making processes, thereby removing a barrier to cross-organizational collaboration. The first three strategies focus on the point of conflict the second three focus on escalation of conflict up the management chain.
Devise and implement a common method for resolving conflict.The authors offer six strategies for effectively managing conflict: The fact is, you can’t improve collaboration until you’ve addressed the issue of conflict. The problem? Most companies focus on the symptoms (“Sales and delivery do not work together as closely as they should”) rather than on the root cause of failures in cooperation: conflict. While these initiatives produce occasional success stories, most have only limited impact in dismantling organizational silos and fostering collaboration. Companies try all kinds of ways to improve collaboration among different parts of the organization: cross-unit incentive systems, organizational restructuring, teamwork training.
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