Interdepartmental Communication and Collaboration: Strategies for Knocking Down Organizational Barriers

OVERVIEW

In many non-profits, the challenge may manifest itself between the fund-raising folks, on one hand, and the operational departments on the other. Foundations find themselves faced with competing grant-making missions, each of which seeks to maximize its share of the annual grant budget. In higher education, the silos built around academic majors, such as science and the humanities, stymy students’ desire to design custom-tailored degree programs. These examples, and many more like them, build barriers on the road to organizational success and employee morale.

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND

You will come away with a blueprint for knocking down or leaping such barriers through a seven-point plan:

•  Offer context
•  Exercise empathy
•  Embrace confusion
•  Manage emotions
•  Develop a common lexicon
•  Intermingle, and
•  Craft correct responses

AREAS COVERED

•  How to analyze the cultural differences that exist between employees of differing educational and professional backgrounds that harm the interdepartmental relationship in an organization
•  How to factor in diversity factors, such as gender, age and race
•  How to distinguish between barriers to cooperation between departments resulting from real distinctions in professional standards and genuine resource competition, on one hand, and artificial impediments that arise inadvertently and are hardly noted until they loom large
•  What is the best internal communication strategy to remove or surmount such barriers: inter-office communication tools; training; recreational and informal interactions, etc.
•  When might the employee discipline policy – the stick instead of the carrot – be appropriate to force necessary employee interactions

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Every organization – whether for-profit or nonprofit – of even moderate size and complexity faces a common challenge: how to maximize interdepartmental communication and cooperation in order to maximize organizational success. This webinar discusses strategies and solutions.

WHO WILL BENEFIT

•  Executives
•  Administrators
•  Managers
•  Non-  profit board members
•  Higher Education Senior-level and Mid-level Administrators, including VPs, Deans and Directors

SPEAKER
Jim Castagnera holds an M.A. in Journalism from Kent State University, and a J.D. and Ph.D. (American Studies) from Case Western Reserve University.  He practiced law for 36 years, before retiring in June 2019: 10 years as a labor, employment and intellectual-property attorney with Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr; 3 years as general counsel for Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates; 23 years as associate provost & legal counsel for academic affairs at Rider University.