Within a corporation, teams jockey for resources and promote their roles within the enterprise. It sometimes seems like important parts of the company are working at cross-purposes.
Marketing wants the freedom to make promises and compliance holds them back. Production needs a hiring spree and finance says “no.” IT finds the new systems demanded by HR to be unworkable in the current network structure.
I once worked for a huge company that was selling three different versions of PCs through three different production and sales channels, where each sales group promoted its own product and bad-mouthed the other company offerings to customers. “Buy my desktop because the other desktop versions my company makes stink.” It can be a mess.
Natural conflicts develop within and between departments. Some lawyers feel they are representing the teams they are assigned to support. Some lawyers feel they are representing the “institution” against the damage those teams could do. These frictions can be damaging, but they can also assure management that important…
