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Not managing permissions in interdepartmental communication is scary for CIOs?

Are you caught in the midst of interdepartmental communication breakdown?

If yes! Look into the ways to mend.

What keeps CIOs concerned is the hierarchical pattern in the organization. Information rolls down through the hierarchy and is divided among several teams for a particular task. Although to communicate and deliver results team leads are responsible. Isn’t this rational?

Simply put, different departments in the organization often have a hard time understanding each other. If you as the CIO, want the organization to deliver its best, you need to focus on creating robust processes to increase collaboration and transparency for inter-departmental communication.

Why are CIOs scared?

It’s not just the outcome of an interdepartmental communication breakdown which scares CIOs. We have a tough time managing permissions in interdepartmental communication as well. And the responsible factors too are not very new to all of us.

 – Conflicts among managers

 – Dispersed teams

 – Broken information flow

 – Office politics

 – Industry stereotypes

Ego conflicts and disagreements among managers are typically known to affect the processes built to keep them in place. One area where leaders need to focus for maximum impact on the output is internal communication at the workplace.

How can you improve?

It’s important for CIOs to lead discussions on how information flow management will help the company and its customers to deliver better, faster & cheaper. This allows CIOs to build enough trust in their employees and manage permissions in interdepartmental communications. We hope the pointers below will help manage the information flow in interdepartmental communication.

 – Identify vital information
Each department needs to keep track of the details with other departments. And routinely review the details in case the expectations of other departments are not met. With this strategy, need-to-know information gets to the need-to-know staff. And let’s not forget the follow-up in the details.

– Ask your teams to brainstorm their need-to-know information and discuss
Brainstorming the need-to-know information with the team and the team comes up with different solutions during the session. Communicate and discuss with other teams solutions proposed informally to come up with the best solution. These brainstorming sessions must be focused on solving a problem at the organization level, but in turn will help the team understand of their shortcomings.

For instance, marketing team relies on the sales team to know the target audience and to formulate a better strategy. And, sales team relies on the marketing team for generating qualified leads based on the persona shared earlier.

– Build camaraderie among your department heads
The vision of an organization permeates through the leaders. The teams working together will work towards a common goal if all the leaders are on the same page.

 – Foster an environment where your departments understand each other’s jobs
Lack of understanding of other team’s contribution to one’s team goals is one of the primary challenges for the CIOs.

 – Establish a Common Language
The very first strategy should be to ensure if everybody is communicating in common language. It is a must for accelerating decision-making & understanding each other’s motivations and limitations.

 – Encourage Open Dialogue
To ensure cohesion among departments, take constructive steps and encourage open dialogue for all employees. This improves employee commitment towards work and develops a positive working relationship.

 – Facilitate real-time communication between departments
Real-time communication keeps employee connected. Implementing real-time communication tools in the work process streamlines the workflow, avoids conflicts and keeps transparency across different levels.

 – Optimize digital communication and collaboration
Some organizations have global teams and the teams do tend to interact with one another on common tasks. Digital channels are the best means of communication for distant teams when they need to collaborate. You can incorporate digital communication where the interaction is more convenient, more seamless and more personal. Look into ways for the replacement of e-mails and encourage direct interaction as much as possible. Communication through these real-time channels will be faster and would result in a quicker feedback loop.

 – Practice JFK communication
It’s quite simple – try to walk in the shoes of different managers in the organization to find the need-to-know information and how the interaction happens at the root level.

These steps can help improve and manage permissions across interdepartmental communication. While many people believe open lines of communication projects high collaboration within the organization. However, some are still in their silos and avoid open interdepartmental communication. 

If you have trouble managing permissions in your organization. Contact us on how our real time solutions can help you do so.