Have you ever heard of a healthy, successful company with just one person behind it? I haven’t either. Differing personality types, barriers, dependencies, and meeting deadlines are some reasons for cross-departmental avoidance. The tension between teams is especially common when it comes to your marketing and sales departments. Fortunately, departmental collaboration doesn’t have to be that way.
Improving Cross-Departmental Collaboration
Here are a few key points that highlight why departmental collaboration is not only crucial to a company and but how it’s also beneficial to each team member.
Viewpoints and Perspectives
Every individual has a unique background, point of view, and a pool of experience that brings a unique perspective to a situation. So bringing a group of people together to discuss solutions or ideas can result in more innovative thinking. Sometimes, just bouncing the bud of an idea off of someone else turns that bud into a flower. Solution-based thinking leads to new perspectives, and problem-solving becomes more creative. A new set of eyes is always a good thing. An idea that might have been right under sales’ noses all along could be brought to the forefront by marketing.
Team Building
Collaborative working allows ideas to cross-pollinate. Discovering that your lead creative also has experience with business development can certainly help bring the team to a solution. But it also enables everyone to realize how their work and skills fit into the bigger picture and the company’s high-level goals. We all get tunnel vision sometimes – and a fresh perspective opens doors. Departmental collaboration between teams that have historically been at odds with each other, like sales and marketing, can also eliminate the illusion of a hierarchy. When we are all able to see the value each individual brings to the table, we can execute each other’s ideas and elevate the project as a whole. This insight, in itself, builds team strength.
Individual Growth
Understanding and recognizing the value that comes from making sure each person on your team feels rewarded and incentivized to participate is key to finding the potential in collaboration. A lot of growth can happen when there is space to speak up and listen to ideas, benefiting both sales and marketing. Not only is that good company practice, but it’s excellent for each team member as an individual.
Company Impact
When there is an understanding between sales and marketing, there will ultimately be better results. Think of a time you had the opportunity to explain exactly why you felt a certain way or why you did something someone else may not have understood. I bet being heard felt good. Departmental collaboration fosters a healthy environment. And in a healthy environment, coworkers will establish deeper connections and make more progress toward both team’s end goals. Understanding each department’s challenges and goals cultivates creative solutions and encourages teamwork and growth.
Departmental collaboration creates an environment for learning and understanding. It leads members of both teams to work harder for each other, innovation to blossom, and goals to flourish. Like Aristotle says, “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”
Alicia Griffin is SmarkLabs’ Project Admin and Ops Support Specialist. With a drive for seeing people reach their full potential, Alicia is passionate about creating collaborative and inclusive environments. Otherwise, you’ll find her staring for hours at a painting, stuck in a book or hanging out with her super handsome golden retriever, Bentley.
