Collaborative Gaps: Why Your Team's Best Efforts Aren't Enough

Imagine planning a big event. Your team is all hands on deck, working hard to ensure everything goes off without a hitch. But despite everyone's best efforts, something still feels off. The speakers weren’t quite right, the timing was a bit off, and the flow just didn’t hit the mark. What happened?

You’ve just encountered a collaborative gap.

Collaborative gaps occur when the pieces of the puzzle just don’t fit together as smoothly as they should. In other words, the individual efforts were there, but the group coordination was lacking. This often happens because the collaboration within teams is solid, but the collaboration across teams is less than stellar.

Take, for example, a situation where your event planning team needs input from your program staff to secure top-notch speakers. But instead of a smooth handoff, the program staff drags their feet, not out of spite, but because they’re busy with their own priorities. The result? A last-minute scramble that leads to less-than-ideal choices, impacting the overall quality of the event.

These gaps are sneaky. They often don’t show up as glaring failures but rather as a slow erosion of quality and effectiveness. Over time, these small misses can accumulate, leading to bigger problems down the line.

So, what’s the fix? Start by identifying where these gaps are happening and why. Is it a lack of role clarity? Unclear decision-making processes? Whatever the cause, addressing it head-on will close the gaps and lead to a more cohesive, effective team effort.

Question for Reflection: Where in your organization do you notice collaborative gaps, and how might these gaps be affecting the overall success of your projects?

This content pulls out insights from Culture Change Made Easy by Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant. See more resources at culturechangemadeeasybook.com.  Ask us about bulk orders of print copies for your organization!