How To Structure Cross-Department Collaboration

Forbes

7 days ago

Dustin Lemick, founder and CEO of BriteCo, an innovative insurance technology company transforming the retail jewelry insurance experience.
We've all heard the sayings 'There's strength in numbers' and 'There's no 'I' in team' repeatedly. But there's a reason these statements continue to resonate and appear on motivational posters that decorate so many offices: because they're true.
There are few (if any) businesses that have gotten off the ground with just one person. The fact that a business is referred to as a 'company' is telling. We need partners, collaborators, investors and workers to help bring life to an idea. But beyond just having people at your side, it is important to build a strong team and ensure they all work well together.
In my experience as a founder and CEO, establishing and encouraging cross-department collaboration is especially important for fast-growing, growth-phase companies when everything is moving fast and many initiatives are launching simultaneously. Key opportunities and important details can get missed if every department is not on the same page and continually communicating and sharing knowledge. With that in mind, here are three valuable lessons I've learned over the years that you can use to create a solid cross-department team culture.
1. Full-team meetings are important.
Consider having 'standup' meetings once a week where the entire staff (leadership and upper management included) meet and share updates, both big and small. This creates a regular opportunity for teams to come together to applaud everyone's efforts and learn what everyone is working on, what developments are happening and where they can support each other.
My company amplifies this further with an annual 'all hands' gathering, during which different departments share presentations about achievements, new projects and ideas they may want to get off the ground in the near future. I've found that this route can also grow team members' confidence that everyone is moving in the same direction and that their role is critical to the effort.
2. Teams can grow each others' knowledge.
The more knowledge and understanding each employee has about the organization, its current and upcoming projects and its future goals, the more ammunition they have to do their job well. For example, if someone on your marketing team is trying to navigate the intricacies of AI to help them come up with new content ideas, it may be helpful for them to ask the tech team about what they are doing to input AI into the company's processes. This could also lead to conversations with other departments about how best to leverage the growing technology in their own roles. Encouraging this kind of cooperation can help translate team members' best-in-class knowledge across departments.
3. Everyone's role is everyone's business.
One great program we have at my company is "job shadowing": Employees are assigned to watch a colleague while they work and ask them questions so they can gain perspective on the different roles in the organization. Consider having your employees log a certain number of job shadowing hours every year with as many departments as possible. Also, encourage team members to attend any open meetings they see on the calendar if they want to learn more about the related topic or project. I've found that fostering this type of positive, open culture results in everybody talking to each other and keeping lines of communication open, both of which are important for the success of a healthy organization.
4. Keep your door open.
A key part of successfully creating a cross-department collaborative culture is ensuring the management team is invested. This means being open and communicating effectively with team members at all levels of the organization. For example, every time you hire someone new, tell them that you have an open-door policy—and truly mean it. Your team should know they can approach you anytime to ask questions, share ideas or get feedback, and trust that you'll provide open-book responses.
I also recommend ensuring that your onboarding process is very comprehensive so new employees can access all the information they need from day one. Consider scheduling one-on-one meetings with new hires' coworkers in and out of their department, and provide a robust library of educational tools that present a detailed roadmap of your company.
5. See where there's room to improve.
To keep fostering cross-department collaboration, it's equally important that you continually evaluate the strategies and procedures you've put in place and look for areas where there is room for improvement. For example, while we have had a number of these processes in place for years, our company recently decided that we should launch an employee recognition program. The program incentivizes everyone to know the intricacies of their colleagues' roles and to provide acknowledgment when a job is well done. Employees get a monthly balance of 'points' that they can give to different coworkers or departments, who can then redeem the points for rewards.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to fostering a collaborative culture, I have found that quality is more important than quantity. Consider starting with something like reducing the number of less-productive single-department meetings in favor of fewer, more imperative group discussions where key players from different departments can be part of the conversation. When everyone is able to work together without the restriction of departmental boundaries, you can create true harmony between your teams.
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