One Language, One Goal: Enhancing Cross-Department Collaboration

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Published by Jan Veerman, last updated on

Do you speak the same language as your colleagues?

Within companies, you have different departments. Each department has its own expertise, like HR, Marketing, Finance and Supply Chain. And each department has its own abbreviations, slang, specific words that each use. Also due to the focus, the people working in each department and cultures, department tend to create a specific ‘language’ that might be difficult to follow for an outsider.

Ask for example a technician to explain the workings of a product, and you will be bombarded by technical specifications, abbreviations, 3-letter acronyms and more. The same goeds for Finance if they explain you the rules and legislation regarding how to calculate amortisation. Or supply chain if they explain the calculation of safety stock.

Very specific wording is used and if you are not familiar with the language used, you might feel overwhelmed or even intimidated by your lack of knowledge. That there is a specific language per department is not the problem, colleagues can understand each other without having to ask for the meaning of each 3-letter acronym. Communication is optimised for the group. The problem arises when people from different departments (or companies) need to communicate to each other.

The same language…but different results

But how can that be a problem you might think? We all speak the same language in an organisation, right? The main language within an organisation is set based on the nationalities of the employees. If all are Dutch, the language used for communication is Dutch. If there are several nationalities, the language automatically switches to English. So what is the problem? Let me give an example: let’s say the objective from Management is to further optimise the organisation. The word ‘optimise’ is something we immediately grasp we need to be more effective, more efficient, do more with less, etc. But depending on the department you are working for, it might translate into complete and sometimes even opposite actions.

Take Finance for example: further optimising for Finance might mean improving sales and reducing costs. A few layoffs are agreed, targets and bonuses are aligned to keep Sales on their toes and inventory will be reduced to free up cash. As a result, the bottom line results will improve by an increased margin.

Now lets take the angle from Supply Chain: further optimising might mean improving your service and availability of your products for your customers. Additional people are hired for the Support team to handle requests from customers and inventory is increased to be able to deliver. As a result, the revenue will increase…but the costs as well! Based on regular surveys, the company can see that the overall approval rate by customers has been increased (optimised) due to better availability of your products.

Two departments within one organisation, one goal, but complete opposite actions and results! Costing the organisation a huge amount of money, time and effort is not aligned and will frustrate many colleagues based on the inefficiencies that are introduced. But no worries, there is a way to deal with this.

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The same language…working towards one result!

One way to deal with this is to start to speak the same ‘language’. Knowing that the goal of the company can only be achieved if all departments, colleagues and partners, suppliers work together and align actions. Periodic alignment and communication is key. Colleagues from different departments that group together in one meeting should be contant aware of the language they use. Skip the specific 3-letter acronyms, the department specific lingo that others do not understand. Speak in plain and simple wording. And introduce the feedback loop to ask if the receiving parties can explain, in their own words, the message that has been sent. If there is unclarity, you can correct.

Another, in my opinion, mandatory way to work together towards one goal is to introduce the concept of OKRs: Objectives and Key Results. In short, this is a process to translate the goals set in the company’s strategy to the different department. Each department translates the company objectives in departmental objectives and the actions needed to achieve the key results. These departmental OKRs can be broken down to a lower level of detail. Once set, all OKRs must be aligned across the organisation and work together to the strategic goals set. This OKR process is the ‘language’ used to align across departments and keep track of progress.

For example if one of the objectives is to increase sales by reducing lost sales, and action might be to increase availability, to increase stock levels. Once this is agreed, Finance will know that this decision will have an impact on the cash flow position, but should increase revenue. Supply chain will need to ramp up production to be able to increase stock levels.

Conclusion

We all do speak the same language…and we don’t. We all speak Dutch, English, our mother tongue and probably one or two other languages as well. But that does not mean we communicate efficiently across the organisation. And this causes many challenges in organisations, introducing inefficiencies, huge costs, frustration and misunderstanding. By being aware of the language you use in your communication, you can bring your message across more efficient. Skip the abbreviations, the 3-letter acronyms, the departmental specific words, the technical jargon. Explain in plain and simple language. And align on the strategic intent across departments. Make sure everyone in the organisation knows the long term goals and the translation into short term actions. These actions need to be aligned across departments to make sure the organisation operates in the most efficient way as possible.

If everyone is aligned, speaks the same language, all your problems will be solved! No, that is not true, but it results in far less issues compared to not speaking the same language and not being aligned. Let’s start today to pay attention to what we say and how we say it to increase efficiency.

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