Three ways to cross-pollinate ideas across teams

What differentiates a fast track career, a slow and steady career, and a stuck career?

The answer is one word: Networking

Networking also has a very crass connotation to it. It conjures up images of extroverts who go around sharing visiting cards, asking for LinkedIn ids, and generally being bombastic and superficial whilst asking for favors.

But then networking is exactly opposite that. It’s all about giving. It’s about giving value to all whom we meet and in the era of social media to all our followers as well.

That being said, within the corporate world esp. within your firm you can provide value by being the cross-pollinator of ideas across teams.

On an individual level, the ability to understand the scope of work in each team, the kind of problems they face and how another person can help them requires domain expertise and an innate ability to connect patterns.

Whilst individuals cross-pollinating across teams is good for the enterprise in terms of productivity as weel as innovation. I say Innovation because as different people across different disciplines interact serependity comes into play and from serependity new ideas emerge.

So, how can enterprises create areas for cross team idea pollination?

Idea #1: Create water cooler spaces

Create no-judgement spaces and encourage non-judgemental managers. Communial lunch areas and combined team outings are another way to make people come together to share ideas

Idea #2: Get everyone to make decisions together

Let’s say you are painting a wall. Why can’t teams come together and brainstorm? What kind of coffee machine to chose in the break room? Maybe get two teams to debate it over lattes?

These smaller, low intensitydiscussions focused on decision making tends to break the ice.

Idea #3: Give Introductions

Sometimes a buddy system works really well here. One of the best applications of giving introductions I have seen recently was as follows:

All employees who have been in the organization for over two years was placed in a pool. Keep in mind this firm was spread across different cities. They randomly matched people from two different cities along with a senior mentor. They had lots of virtual sessions and games and there was a cross pollination of ideas and in general people came to know each other much better.

Both on an individual and firm level, sharing ideas across teams is a pretty sweet idea. For one group it’s a life skill and for the other group it’s an all important culture.