Mukōsangen ryōdonari – the three houses opposite and one on either side- is a Japanese expression to define the immediate neighbors on whom one might need to depend in times of emergency. In any organization, project, and also enterprise, the starting point is the Team. It is generally thought to be important to maintain good relations with at least your minimal working group. After all, knowing that you are part of a team in which you place your Trust and whose support you have, helps increase the Well-being and the Commitment of its members, exactly as the immediate Japanese neighborhood does.
Analyzing teams’ behavior and inner relationships, organizations can understand their collaborators’ feelings, opinions and needs about their workplace and focus on improving their priorities. Eventually, once you know your Team, you can rely on it and it comes easier to expand collaboration and cooperation to a wider dimension, to face new challenges with creative solutions to complex problems. Basically, “Teamwork Makes the Dream Work”.
Nowadays, teams are reorganizing in different forms, such as agile, co-acting, and hybrid, just to mention a few. Hybrid teams, in particular, have existed since before the pandemic, are steadily increasing, and now we know they are here to stay. But there is more to it than that. When hybrid team is not an option, organizations face more difficulties attracting talent and frequently current collaborators leave at a faster rate for other opportunities. Thus, since hybrid work is both a challenge and an opportunity, it has become vital to enhance teams and organizations’ interaction in such an uncertain scenario.
Even if boundaries are fluid, an effective interaction is more critical than ever before, thus it’s easy to end up working in silos when you barely interact with others. Teams working in the same department, or trained to deal with problems in the same way as their managers, will often follow existing procedures. This means they may repeat the same mistakes and miss opportunities to work more efficiently. Working compartmentalized can lead to a limited vision mindset that can make team members feel isolated. In some cases, this mindset can even trigger unhealthy competition among people. It can also lead team members to become disengaged from the organization or their role in it. And research shows that disengaged employees are less likely to work hard, feel motivated, or meet expectations for their role, and they cause 60% more errors and defects in work performance.
Failure to communicate with colleagues can lead to decision-making without the right information that can impact people in the organization. Probably the greatest strength of a cross-team is its ability to challenge the status quo. Cross-team communication and cross-functional work are at the basis of outstanding companies such as Apple and Netflix, which means they are the right option.
Here you have six benefits for fostering and improving cross-team collaboration:
- Insight and Innovation
- Goal alignment and collaborative culture
- Increased Teams’ engagement, motivation, and trust
- Improved communication and performance
- Better leaders’ and team members’ skills
- Better conflict-resolution
So, why not giving it a try?
https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_edmondson_how_to_turn_a_group_of_strangers_into_a_team
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/393497/world-trillion-workplace-problem.aspx
Background bibliography:
- Hendry, Understanding Japanese Society, 2019, Routledge
- C. Maxwell, Teamwork Makes the Dream Work, 2002