Team Building; Tribbles Hate Klingons

I have a poster hanging in my office that says "All I need to know in life I learned from Star Trek". It lists a number of “truths” including "Tribbles hate Klingons (and Klingons heat Tribles)." As every Trekkie knows Tribbles are furry little aliens and Klingons are a warlike race. In the tv show they do not get along.

The truth behind this statement is that often time different parts of many small businesses do not get along. The sales staff believes it is the part of the company that makes the money after all the company’s income flows from the sales they make. In their mind if there is a problem it is from the production staff who cannot produce the product fast enough, cheap enough or without defects.  

Conversely the production staff sees the sales people as a necessary evils who complains about deliveries, price and quality with no understanding of how long it takes to make the company’s product, how expensive the raw materials are and how difficult it is to make.  All sales people do is complain.

The truth is, of course, they are both trying to do the same thing; profitably satisfy the customer.  Create a way for your different employees to interact without conflict and develop an understanding of each other’s challenges. Create a feedback loop that highlights that the complaints or comments are coming from customer issues and not the sales person. Issues should be tracked as they arise so they can be solved and not repeated.  If the widgets are breaking in shipping is it a packaging problem or a shipping problem. Each complaint can be an opportunity to improve the product if the information is channeled correctly.

The feedback loop should include the exact description of the problem, what difficulty it is causing the customer and how wide spread it appears to be. Have the sales people work together on the problem. You can referee if necessary but if you can get the Tribbles and Klingons working directly on solving problems you will develop better product, create understanding between the departments and give both the Tribbles and Klingons ownership in the quality of the product. 

Original Material copyright Thomas Robinson 2010