As companies begin to scale and adopt more efficient working styles, an organisational concept that is gaining greater significance is the importance of cross functional relationships across departments. While internal team dynamics are the most important factor to get right first, cross department relationships should not be neglected.
Challenges of dysfunctional cross department relationships
Companies with little to no interaction or relationships between departments tend to face a lot of challenges related to efficiency and productivity.
These include:
- Wasted time, resources and money when efforts are ideas are not aligned
- Narrow minded and unable to consider other viewpoints
- Pointless meetings – conflicting ideas and confusion of how teams are operating
- A silo style of working – closed off to other departments
- Lack of direction and unity
- Creating more workplace conflict
Benefits of cross functional relationships
There are numerous benefits to having cross department relationships which impacts on the success of a company, as listed below:
- Individuals understand their contributions to the common goal
- More efficiency and productivity, and therefore quicker in achieving goals
- More effective use of time, effort, resources and money
- Creating and delivering more purposeful projects
- Makes employees more open minded and understand the impact of their work on other departments and toward the common goal
How to create positive cross functional relationships
There are many ways you can lead your organisation to perform better, such as:
- Provide clear common goals and objectives and set out the contribution that every department will make towards achieving it
- Give employees platforms and tools that will allow them to communicate and share information
- Provide team training and set standards on work collaboratively
- Encourage employees to build interpersonal relationships informally and trust each other
- Give employees the opportunity to collaborate by delegating tasks and getting them to consult one another
- Teach empathy – employees with a positive mindset and attitude will be more open to working collaboratively
- Have a common language and reduce the use of jargon or department-specific language that can challenge employees or make them feel excluded
- Get feedback – employees know best what challenges need to be addressed and how to improve and accommodate their working styles.
Get in touch with our team to learn more
Want to strengthen your company’s cross functional relationships? Don’t forget to check out our article on how to build a high performing team. Performance by Design specialises in helping you boost productivity, employee engagement and improving your way of working. Contact us today to see how we can help you.
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