This is one of those weeks. Flew to Orlando late Sunday for the 24th annual ARC Advisory Group Industry Forum (my 23rd). Up early Monday and met with at least 20 people spending most of the day sitting. Dinner with a group from 7-10 pm. Back to the hotel room (I am staying about a 25-minute walk from the conference hotel, so I get some exercise). In bed after 11. Up at 5:30 to get ready, walk to the conference hotel, and then sit through an hour of breakfast and company presentations.

Then came the keynote presentations. Usually these are theoretical and can be boring. But today the leader of the Information Technology group and the leader of the Operations and Manufacturing group from Dow spoke about working together in order for the corporation to meet its goals.

These two organizations within a company typically do not like each other. Each thinks of the other as a roadblock to good organization. Each thinks the other doesn’t understand their needs and expertise. (Actually, there is some truth to that.)

No matter what sort of organization you work at, you’ve no doubt seen where bickering and misunderstanding between different groups leads to a dysfunctional organization. Without strong leadership from the top, the organization, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, will not serve its customers and investors and will ultimately fail.

The point was that these two executives shared the story about how the two organizations broke down the barriers between them and worked together to achieve the corporate goals.

The “secret sauce”? Communication. They had adjacent offices. Saw each other daily. Had meetings. Brought teams together. Later I talked with several people at the conference who also were impressed with the presentation–both the way it was delivered as a conversation between the two and in the results achieved.

Communication. Cooperation. Try it in your organization.

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