What are the biggest challenges in working together?
There are a few challenges.
On the one hand, there are human factors, the different personalities, which are also hired according to these characteristics. Marketing people are often more creative and analytical. They look at the data and optimize it. They look at the portfolio: How is the branding? What personas should be behind it? They invest much time to make sure the overall brand picture is correct. Salespeople are usually more communicative, more pragmatic, and approach people proactively. Sometimes you get situations where Marketing says, “Hey, Sales, you guys just need to sell this.” Sales comes from a different perspective. They say, “Meh…, that’s a lot of theory, but we know our customers and their needs. We have our own goals, and everything that’s going on around here isn’t that important to us.” And so they pick up the phone and call off their leads.
It has become a tradition to directly attribute a corresponding need for change to people whenever there is a push for change.
This need for development has to do with the fact that the cause of conditions in companies is often attributed to people’s character traits and abilities. This logically results in the change lever “MindSet”.
Apart from the unproductive attempts at change by working on people, the significantly greater lever for change is the system, not the manager or the people themselves.
The leadership system is the context in which the leader and their colleagues act. It consists of organizational and operational structures, management tools, and policies.
Yes, some of these people indeed produce these structures. But that doesn’t mean that people have to change. They have to LEARN something.
So, better: we look at the framework and the context.