15 Apr How Proactive Are Your Cross-Departmental Communications?
I am getting great information from my survey on the impact of silos in organizations, thank you to all who completed it! Over 220 combined responses so far!! I don’t tell you that to impress you but instead to impress upon you the need for you to know where silos may be in your organization and how they may be impacting your business. According to both surveys, anywhere from 55.5% to 75% said that silos, those invisible barriers to the effective flow of information in organizations, are still here, are damaging, and are even getting worse.
What is ONE thing you should do to get a handle on silos? Evaluate your cross-departmental communication efforts. Don’t overestimate your effectiveness! Those invisible barriers to the flow of information cause angst, frustration, and stress in organizations on a daily basis. Now, I know I don’t need to sell you on the importance of cross-departmental communication, one incredible antidote to silos, but I think I do need to sell you on the need to take stock of how well you are doing it.
3 Questions to Start You Off:
- Does everyone truly understand how what they do and how they do it impacts other departments? For example, how the promises sales teams make impacts the ability of the installation team to live up to those promises? Or how the scheduling team impacts the delivery driver’s ability to meet the promised appointment time with the right products in hand?
- When decisions are being made are the right people from the necessary departments in the room? Do you have the right people weighing in on decisions that actually do the work under consideration and who will be impacted by the decisions?
- Are multiple teams working on the same projects in different parts of the organization duplicating efforts and wasting time.
You may be unpleasantly surprised.
How do you make sure your cross-departmental communications efforts are effective?
Looking forward to hearing from you on what has worked, and what hasn’t!