Building Relationships for Team Success: 20 Surefire Ways to Get Stakeholders on Board

Barrier 3: Differentiation

Management experts use the term “differentiation” to refer to the fact that organizations typically separate people by functions into divisions, work groups or units.¹ In other words, a company will usually put all the accountants together in the accounting or finance department, or all the sales professionals together in the sales department. It is just the most efficient way for a company to organize its human resources. In addition, employees typically like to work with people who share similar backgrounds, education, interests and work styles.

However, while this differentiation is helpful in getting the work done efficiently, it can create barriers to effective cross-functional networking and collaboration. As ...