Lack of co-operation is – even if unintentional – can lead to mistakes and customer dissatisfaction. People often need to be shown that lack of co-operation harms them and that if they want others to co-operate they must make it easy for them.

*People in poorly performing departments or organisations often blame people in other departments. “The engineers don’t fill in the order forms correctly”, “Our logistics department never gets the items to us on time”. “Production lets us sales guys down”.

*People don’t perform badly intentionally. Almost always lack of co-operation is caused by ignorance of the effect one is having on others, misunderstandings, misperceptions, poor communication and habitually attributing bad motives to others. In rare cases co-operation is not as good as it could be because people don’t care.

*The trouble is people can’t see the consequences of their actions and if they do, don’t know what to do about it. Often some people see solutions but they don’t know how to action them or are unwilling to do so.

*Why don’t people take the necessary action? That’s what Departmental Co-operation Workshops are about – finding out why then finding solutions; then helping people find the courage to act.

RESULT?

“Hidden” antagonisms are cleared; what each department or group wants is made explicit and expectations are clarified. Better camaraderie, motivation, and productivity result.