Responding to complex challenges often requires joint operations between multiple teams of experts. But effective collaboration between teams with different cultures, incentives, and ways of working does not happen by accident. Under pressure, inter-team friction can easily derail coordination, fragment effort, and create anti-synergy, situations where two plus two effectively equals negative three.
High-performing organizations understand this risk and work proactively to build and maintain strong relationships between teams. High-performing individuals do the same at a personal level. They make the teams around them easier to work with, not harder. In this article, we will look at three…
Responding to complex challenges often requires joint operations between multiple teams of experts. But effective collaboration between teams with different cultures, incentives, and ways of working does not happen by accident. Under pressure, inter-team friction can easily derail coordination, fragment effort, and create anti-synergy, situations where two plus two effectively equals negative three.
High-performing organizations understand this risk and work proactively to build and maintain strong relationships between teams. High-performing individuals do the same at a personal level. They make the teams around them easier to work with, not harder. In this article, we will look at three common ways teams interact and explore practical ideas for improving inter-team relationships in complex environments.
To make these dynamics concrete, consider three hypothetical teams. Team A is the team we are part of and the one responsible for a critical operation. Teams B and C are other expert teams that Team A depends on to get the job done. In a hospital, Team A might be an intensive care unit working with neurology and trauma teams to care for a motorcycle crash patient. In a corporate setting, Team A might be an engineering group collaborating with marketing and manufacturing to bring a new product to market. The details differ, but the interaction patterns are strikingly similar.
Ambassadors and Historical Problem-Solvers
The most visible way teams interact is directly. Team A engages Team B to solve a specific problem or conduct a joint operation. At this interface, collaboration occurs both at the front line, where people work the problem in real time, and behind the scenes, where leadership and support functions coordinate resources and decisions.
Focusing only on the current interaction, however, misses a critical factor. Inter-team relationships have memory. Joint operations are path-dependent, meaning how teams have worked together in the past shapes how they function now. If Teams A and B carry a history of conflict, mistrust, or competition, they may struggle to collaborate even if the individuals involved have never met before.
High-performing teams recognize this dynamic and understand that every interaction leaves a trace. Individuals are always acting as ambassadors for their team, whether they intend to or not. Their behavior shapes how their team is perceived and sets expectations for future collaboration.
Addressing past friction between teams is often necessary for successful joint operations, but it must be done constructively. A simple acknowledgment that previous interactions were suboptimal, paired with a clear commitment to improve how teams work together, can reset expectations and reduce unnecessary tension.
An important corollary of this ambassador role is resisting the urge to generalize individual behavior into sweeping judgments about an entire team. One mistake by a single person does not mean a department is dysfunctional. High-performing teams are disciplined about separating individuals from institutions.
Indirect Communication and Interaction
Not all team interactions are direct, and indirect relationships are often just as consequential. One useful way to think about this is as a triangle. If Team A works directly with Team B, and Team B works directly with Team C, then Team A has an indirect relationship with Team C.
Consider wildfire response. A local fire organization may work closely with neighboring state teams, who in turn coordinate with specialized air attack units from farther away. The local team interacts directly with its neighbors and indirectly with the aviation crews.
Indirect interactions matter for two reasons. First, they can quickly become direct as situations evolve. A team that was peripheral yesterday may become central tomorrow. Second, information travels in unpredictable ways. What Team A says to Team B about Team C can easily make its way back to Team C, often distorted along the way.
Functionally, this kind of communication frequently behaves like the children’s game “telephone,” where every transmission of information results in distortion of the original message. While the game is fun and interesting, in real life, this form of unintentional and indirect communication can wreak havoc on performance in joint operations.
As a result, high-performing teams are intentional about how they talk about other teams, even for those not directly present. Additionally, these teams go out of their way to praise the groups they work with, both directly to them and indirectly to others with whom they might work in the future. Doing this sets the stage for future positive interactions.
Talking to Yourself
A third and often overlooked form of interaction is internal. These are the stories teams tell themselves about other teams. You can think of this as a form of indirect interaction: in this case, what some members of Team A say to their teammates about Team B.
This dynamic is especially powerful when new members join a team. Newcomers arrive without established mental models of how other teams operate. By default, they inherit the mental models of older members of their team, for better or for worse. Judgements about the capability, ethics, or character of other teams are easily internalized, as are less formal models about what right looks like for inter-team interactions.
Veteran team members are not immune to this process. A small number of emotionally charged interactions can easily harden into lasting beliefs that either degrade future collaboration or enhance it. These internal narratives can create self-reinforcing loops, for better or worse.
High-performing teams take this seriously. They recognize that they are ambassadors not only to other teams, but also to their own. They are deliberate about how they describe partner teams, especially in moments of frustration, because they understand how easily those stories can shape future behavior.
Building Better Joint Operations
Across all three interaction types, a common theme emerges. High-performing teams actively manage the stories circulating about other teams, whether those stories are shared directly, transmitted indirectly, or reinforced internally. Improving these stories is a practical way to reduce friction and improve trust, and can yield outsized benefits for organizations operating in complex, multi-team environments.