bad business

It’s easy to get caught up in departmental or team squabbles inside of organizations.  My advice: stay clear, stay out of it and learn to think and act for yourself.

Some functional squabbles are legendary.  Sales versus Marketing.  Marketing versus Development. Marketing and the rest of the organization.  Hey, maybe Marketing is the problem here! Perhaps if we put that group in their place… . (Just testing you.)

Stay clear!

Us versus Them squabbles are commonplace and destructive. “They don’t understand what we do.”  “They’re not in front of customers like we are.”  “They think that we just sit down at our computers and magically, new software code spews forth.”

It’s not about they or them, it’s about us and we.

People that view departmental walls and boundaries as fixed and even as important are misguided.  The focus is and must be on creating value for customers, on differentiating versus competitors and on finding as many ways as possible to improve efficiency and effectiveness.  While people might have a home base and a vocational orientation (marketing, sales, engineering etc.), there is no one group more important than the other.

You are all dependent upon each other.

The challenge to innovate often breeds dedicated “innovation” teams where a new form of “Us versus Them” develops.  One group, the innovators are cool and free from much of the bureaucracy that everyone else lives with on a daily basis.  The other group: operations, work to provide the funding that allows the innovators to do their thing.  Managers best beware of the potential for this situation to create divisions and hard feelings.

The challenges and solutions for managers to resolve silo problems and turf wars revolve around attention, constant communication, mutual respect and the creation of an environment of accountability for working together.  All groups are critical…all groups are valuable for many reasons.

As for you as an individual contributor or leader, steer clear of attempts to draw you into the divisions. The temptations is strong.  When you feel the urge to rail about another group, skip the moaning and reach out to a counterpart in that group and find a mutual way forward.  You’ll be happy that you did.