Conflicts can arise not only between you and a member of your staff but between work units or departments. Such conflicts may arise over battles for limited resources. Sometimes, they are due to differences in viewpoint about how to approach the same situation. Sometimes, group leaders have a personal conflict, and the feeling permeates down into their team’s membership. The teams become silos, hoarding information and refusing to cooperate with one another.
To get the teams to work effectively together, one or both leaders need to meet to discuss how a better relationship between the groups will benefit both. Think of this as a modern version of old-fashioned horse trading, in which skills, abilities, knowledge, and technology are exchanged to move both teams forward in their efforts. As a follow-up measure, invite members of the other team to sit in on your team session. Learn to keep each other abreast of progress. Develop channels of communication and keep them open.
If you want to encourage a competitive urge among members, focus your group’s attention on competing with teams from other companies, not their own.
In short, you need to practice the same conflict resolution techniques to build stronger ties with internal teams as you use to resolve conflicts between staff members or conflicts between you and a direct report.