The way we talk about cross-functional collaboration divides a workplace rather than unifying employees around tasks. We talk about interfaces and interface clarification, but this inhibits trust, communication, knowledge and goal setting. Preliminary results from a new PhD project show this, so here's a guide to an alternative: Managing collaborative spaces.
Often, leaders talk about interfaces and interface clarification when talking about cross-functional collaboration. However, when collaboration is separated by a clean cut, there is inevitably a gap where something is lost - it could be the shared task, trust or meaning that disappears in the interface.
Instead, leaders must think, speak and act from the metaphor of collaborative spaces, which suggests establishing a shared set of actions, knowledge, communication, trust and identity.
Here you can read more about the metaphors of interfaces and collaboration spaces, and then get tools on how to change your organization's interfaces into collaboration spaces in cross-functional collaboration.
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Why the vegetable metaphor is a problem for managers
An online dictionary lookup shows that the word "cut surface" refers to the surface that is created when something, such as a vegetable, is cut. In a figurative sense, the interface is often used as a metaphor for a substantive or organizational dividing line between two areas, two jurisdictions, departments or the like. The term refers to separate elements that have something in common, such as being two parts of the same organization.
In an organizational context, managers often need to describe where the competencies and responsibilities of two professional groups or departments start and end in an interdisciplinary collaboration. In an interface logic, departments and professionals don't mix blood, so to speak. The ideal is a clean cut that clarifies the separation of tasks, responsibilities and areas of competence - this is the basis for coordination.
The problem with the interface metaphor is that it only emphasizes separation. This overlooks the double meaning of the word boundary, namely that it is also the boundary that connects professional groups, departments and organizations across the shared task.
