“Our Sales team doesn’t communicate enough with the Finance team!”
“Our Operations team spends too much time coordinating work between departments and figuring out resources!”
"Our Marketing team experience late feedback/inputs from other departments they rely on, delaying our campaigns!”
“Our company-wide projects need better clarity on which department is responsible for what and when!”
As an Asana Solutions Partner, Consultant & Trainer, the above statements are some of the most common pain points I hear from my clients during a discovery call. The underlying recurring issue is weak cross-functional collaboration (often shortened to “XFN collaboration”) which causes the all too well-known headaches, tension and friction to everyone involved, making it ever so critical for my clients to face these issues head-on and seek the right tools to solve them.
It will come as no surprise that the tool I use to help my clients, to improve XFN collaboration amongst other numerous pain points, is Asana. By designing and building a holistic system with them in Asana, that is specific to the client’s use case, we then apply a methodology which seeks to improve clarity and communication between members of various departments. This results in encouraging ownership and responsibility whilst also providing purpose and value, on a personal level to each person involved, so they can together reach a clear goal or deadline as a ‘team’, not just members of various departments.
By implementing robust systems in Asana, complemented with clear & simple conventions / guidelines to be followed by all team members, involved from various departments, allows them to finally speak the same language. Empowering them with an easy-to-use platform where they can see the big picture, members can quickly see the results and benefits of using Asana rather than spending time piecing together fragmented emails or messages spread across numerous apps and platforms.
From the micro-scale to the macro-scale, improved XFN collaboration is directly corelated to a company’s fortune such as revenue growth but also scalability and preparedness to face on new challenges or adapt to changing times and unprecedented global events. As per the latest findings of Asana’s recently published 2023 Anatomy of Work Global Index:
Employees who say their organizations have strong collaboration are significantly more likely than others to report revenue growth at their company over the past three years.
- 55% of workers at collaborative organizations report revenue growth over the past three years–almost double those at organizations with weak collaboration.
- 79% of workers at collaborative organizations feel well-prepared to respond to challenges—four times higher than those at organizations with weak collaboration.
- 92% of workers at collaborative organizations say their work has value—versus just 50% of weak collaborators.
It is clear from the data that now is the time for smarter collaboration, not more meetings. Using best practices and one central platform to manage your work, companies can reach their goals, grow revenue, face unprecedented challenges, and meet customer needs.
A strong foundation for a scalable business outlook can be set by unravelling complex procedures into streamlined processes where everyone can get on the same page. Whilst clear company-wide goals that are connected to every piece of work by each individual, empowers teams to stay focused, productive and deliver with less friction and less time figuring out their next steps. It is time for leaders to turn data into action!
About the author: Richard Sather is a Systems Architect & Consultant, Asana Solutions Partner, Asana Product & Sales Specialist and Asana Forum Leader who consults, trains & onboards teams and organisations of various sizes in any field of work to use Asana to its full potential, leading to impactful results by streamlining their processes & workflows, implementing standard operating procedures and improving XFN collaboration.
See all of Richard’s top tips & tricks on his website.
Well said