Cross-organizational initiatives bring many benefits, whether they are within a single organization or interagency, but it’s important that they are deployed with careful consideration if they are to succeed.

First and foremost, before a cross-organizational initiative can be enacted, it’s critical to have a shared ideation among shareholders. This concept refers to the higher-level vision of the initiative—what it’s about—but must be communicated clearly across the board. Often what can happen is the express purpose of the initiative, what’s “written on the paper” so to speak, is lost in translation as it moves through departments. Leadership tends to view the purpose through their own lenses and the way they conduct their work, as well as through their own unique cultures.

One “universal truth” during these initiatives is that you can’t minimize the amount of time you spend getting the team together prior to launch. The “art of the great start” becomes critically important, and ensuring everyone is on the same page before initiation will make for a much smoother process down the road. When there’s a lack in understanding of direction, there’s a lack in buy-in.

A second critical element in a cross-organizational initiative is simply recognizing and acknowledging that different organizations have different cultures and different ways of doing things. When you’re taking on any type of large-scale initiative, there will be deeply engrained personalities, politics, money, history and many other dimensions are involved. Pretending these differences don’t exist will sabotage an initiative from the start. By embracing them, the differences can actually strengthen the program. In fact, one of the main reasons cross-organizational initiatives fail is ignoring the diverse cultures of the agencies that will participate.

This leads to a third important piece of the puzzle: getting the various cultures to communicate with each other and buy into the shared vision. Cultures themselves are very difficult to change, but it is possible to look at people’s behaviors and identify organizational values and norms and the processes that go into getting work done. These are all quantifiable, observable indicators that can help map out an organization’s culture. This is an important first step in reaching an agreed upon definition of culture, and once the cultural archetype is identified, an agreement can be reached on how goals will be reached and projects will be accomplished.

Overall, cross-organizational initiatives are not analytical, black-and-white exercises. Much of the work that must be done in insuring an initiative’s efficacy goes on in the gray areas and the white space of the organizational chart. It’s things like organizational norms, personalities and priorities that must be understood to make an initiative successful.

Want to learn more? Join me September 7 at the Government Workforce Conference.