I hate turf wars.
One of my jobs back in Vicksburg is to hold a monthly discussion session with people on how to collaborate. My team pulls people together who are struggling to work together, helps them identify a common goal, and gets them talking. Sometimes it is easy when we have an easily definable common goal. Other times we have competing missions that make it impossible to do so.
But my job is to start people talking and sharing resources.
An simple example of something that worked this past year: We had a significant re-org in our office, and we were thrown into a new group. And the time with the boss is the scarce resource, and we were competing for it without discussing the problems among ourselves. We weren't talking. There was no hostility.... but there was no relationship.
Individually, we were talking. Some of us, anyway. But we needed to talk regularly. And our weekly formal briefing meetings were not cutting it.
I instituted a CrockPot Thursday.
Every Thursday, I would put some large hunk of meat - pork, beef, chicken, wild boar, venison, sausage, whatever - into the pot. And I would put in all of the supplemental pieces of deliciousness - potatoes, celery, carrots, pasta, kale, garlic, onions, and other stuff. Most of the time I'd make a pico de gallo to accompany it. And the vehicle for getting it in - tortillas, baguettes; sandwich bread, rolls... and the sour cream, mustard, hot sauce - we did it all.
One of my jobs back in Vicksburg is to hold a monthly discussion session with people on how to collaborate. My team pulls people together who are struggling to work together, helps them identify a common goal, and gets them talking. Sometimes it is easy when we have an easily definable common goal. Other times we have competing missions that make it impossible to do so.
But my job is to start people talking and sharing resources.
An simple example of something that worked this past year: We had a significant re-org in our office, and we were thrown into a new group. And the time with the boss is the scarce resource, and we were competing for it without discussing the problems among ourselves. We weren't talking. There was no hostility.... but there was no relationship.
Individually, we were talking. Some of us, anyway. But we needed to talk regularly. And our weekly formal briefing meetings were not cutting it.
I instituted a CrockPot Thursday.
Every Thursday, I would put some large hunk of meat - pork, beef, chicken, wild boar, venison, sausage, whatever - into the pot. And I would put in all of the supplemental pieces of deliciousness - potatoes, celery, carrots, pasta, kale, garlic, onions, and other stuff. Most of the time I'd make a pico de gallo to accompany it. And the vehicle for getting it in - tortillas, baguettes; sandwich bread, rolls... and the sour cream, mustard, hot sauce - we did it all.
