We're on the Same Team

Sometimes an organization can become fragmented. Not by a corporate restructuring or a division into geographic territories or the divestment of some strategic business units. Sometimes an organization becomes fragmented by the mindsets of its employees.

Perhaps you've seen it happen. Perhaps you've been a part of it. Members of different departments (or even of different functions within the same department) begin to see themselves as being on opposing teams. Life within the organization becomes a clash of "the marketing team" versus "the finance team" versus "the technology team" versus "the R&D team" versus "the legal team."

Naturally, these departmental "teams" must have completely opposite goals and completely opposite points of view. Working with anybody from another "team" will inevitably be a hassle and a struggle. A necessary evil.

Members of the "marketing team" enter a meeting with members of the "legal team," dreading the roadblocks that these legal guys will put in the way of the marketers' terrific ideas. Members of the "finance team" walk into a meeting with the "R&D team," ready for a fight over how many budget dollars are reasonable to spend on mere "research." The meeting room is no longer a meeting room, but a battleground. A boxing match.

We forget that everyone within the organization is on the same team.

Hard as it may be to accept, or even to comprehend, our jobs were not created for the success of the marketing team, or the success of the finance team, or the success of the technology team, or the success of the R&D team, or the success of the legal team. Our jobs were created for the success of the organization. We happen to be placed within these departments according to our strengths and to the needs of the entire organization.

We are all working together for the success of the organization. (And, by the way, the organization is successful when it sustainably serves its customers best.)

If we enter a meeting with the realization that everyone in that meeting is on the same team - the "team" of the organization - how does that change the way we approach the meeting? The meeting no longer becomes a contest to see whose opinion can win out, or who can convince "the other side" to give her what she needs, or who can persuade whom to cooperate with his idea. It becomes a discovery of how WE can work together to best serve the organization and our customers.

In that process, we consider what "that department" needs from "this department" in order to do "that department's" job best, and what "this department" needs from "that department" in order to do "this department's" job best. How can each of us do his job best and serve the others in order to achieve the goals of the organization together?

And when we set our sights on achieving the goals of the organization together, the goals of our own respective departments should fall naturally into place.