Dr. Zheng's Governance Communication Discussion 3: We are all company employees, so why is inter-departmental cooperation so difficult?
Governance Question 3:
A friend's department and another department in the company are sequentially positioned in the workflow process, and their work relationship should be very close. But the relationship between these two departments is quite subtle.
When things are going smoothly, it’s fine, but once there is a need to bear any risk or take responsibility for an error, they start blaming each other. It gives the impression that when there are achievements, everyone wants their share of the credit, but if something goes wrong, everyone tries to completely distance themselves from it.
As a result, even small matters often get escalated to senior management. There is always an atmosphere of distrust between the departments. Problems that could have been solved with joint effort between the two departments become more complex due to disputes over who will ultimately be responsible for the results, and this also delays problem resolution.
Consulting the expert, what should be done in such a situation? Should improvements focus on inter-departmental communication or on standardizing processes?
Dr. Zheng Wenbin's Answer:
Firstly, greetings to all friends and managers for a happy new year, and wishing everyone continuous progress and the achievement of expected life and career goals in the new year. Now let’s directly enter the main topic of governance research.
The essence of the issue raised in this case is: there are problems with cooperation between upstream and downstream departments, mainly manifested by mutual distrust, fighting over credit, shirking blame, and not focusing on overall efficiency. Therefore, there is an urgent need to improve the relationship between upstream and downstream departments. This is also a typical governance communication problem often encountered in corporate management. Because of its prevalence, I have chosen to analyze and answer it in more detail and depth, to help other managers learn from it and apply the lessons to similar situations.
1. Analysis of the Causes of Governance Communication Issues in This Case
From the circumstances described in this case, the following basic conclusions can be drawn about the cooperation between these two departments:
1) These two cooperating departments do not have significant personal grudges between key responsible persons or subordinates within the departments. First, the case does not mention any related circumstances, and second, the case describes that "when things are going smoothly, it's fine, but once there is a need to bear any risk or take responsibility for an error, they start blaming each other." This indicates that everyone is just afraid of taking responsibility, but still respects each other and has no obvious ill intent towards one another.
2) The fear of both departments to assume direct responsibility for relevant work errors is one of the main reasons for the communication and cooperation issues in this case. In a company, especially between upstream and downstream departments, there indeed exists the issue of assigning credit or blame for the success or failure of a task. As individuals or departments, people instinctively seek benefits and avoid harm, with the following psychology: first, they hope that during successes, all or part of the credit goes to them, while during failures, all or at least part of the blame goes to others, in order to maintain, strengthen, and elevate their own individual or departmental status within the company; second, in the absence of arbitration mechanisms or clear assignment of responsibilities, individuals or departments usually adopt forceful working methods, aiming to suppress the other party through authority and thereby better achieve the goal of seeking benefits and avoiding harm. These two fundamental psychological factors are entirely based on benefit reactions. In the absence of coordination mechanisms, it is very easy for them to evolve into conflicts of interest and management disputes. Due to the fear of assuming responsibility, both departments become more cautious during cooperation. Whenever they think there might be a misunderstanding or lack of understanding, they immediately: first, quickly report to their superiors what they or their department have already done, aiming to inform the leadership that we have done everything we should, and if anything happens, we should not be held responsible; second, trivial matters that could have been handled independently or discussed with the other department are still not actively resolved, nor communicated with the cooperating department for joint decisions, but rather directly submitted to senior management to avoid assuming responsibility and minimize dealings with related departments. In essence, these two practices mean not taking responsibility, not doing what one should, and instead transferring the matter to one's superior for resolution. In management terms, this is considered abnormal and erroneous management behavior, officially called "reverse delegation," meaning that I originally gave you the authority to do something, but you did not do it well, and instead transferred what you should have done back to me as your superior. This is, on the one hand, dereliction of duty by subordinates, and on the other hand, a waste of the high-priced management resources of senior management personnel.
3) Due to conflicts of interest between the two departments, there is no good communication mechanism, eventually leading to increasingly noticeable emotional tensions between the two departments, especially between their leaders and key members. In severe cases, this may escalate into verbal abuse or even physical fights, and in milder cases, mutual efforts to reduce interactions and negative feelings like denial and dislike towards each other develop internally. Whether severe or mild, the common adverse outcome is that trust between the two departments and their members gradually diminishes. Over time, instead of trying to understand each other's positions and concepts, they begin to speculate and suspect malicious intent from the other side. From the beginning of cooperation, they harbor ill intentions towards the partner, believing that since the other side has ill intentions towards us, we must increase our vigilance to ensure the interests and reputation of our department. From the description in this case, there is already some degree of negative evaluation between the two departments, but it has not yet evolved into a complete lack of trust. Basic trust seems to still be maintained, and there is no immediate risk of complete breakdown of trust.
4) The above-mentioned problems between the two departments remain unresolved for a long time. According to governance rules and experience analysis, this is mainly due to two major reasons: first, the company may not have clearly defined work process systems between the two departments, and the division of responsibilities for related tasks is unclear, especially the demarcation points of responsibilities between the two departments, the allocation of upstream work responsibilities, and the quality acceptance standards are not clearly specified. Since the workflow lacks universally recognized divisions and quality acceptance standards, a continuous task becomes...
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