Take one thing at a time

A while back I wrote that if you want to make improvements or fix something, you should start with the easiest thing, because it allows you to gain team's trust and increase confidence of team members. It will also prove them that it's OK to try and, in some cases, to fail.
Thanks to this you increase your and your team members’ chances to succeed with more complex and problematic issues in the future.

But there’s more things which can help you to achieve a success and increase quality of communication.

once upon a time...

… there were two teams which were working in the different ways, they were using different methodologies and tools. However, those teams also worked on the same project so they had to cooperate someway.
Because all of those differences between them, they were found themselves in conflict situations too often. Of course, they tried to heal the atmosphere many times in the past, but "somehow" it always got back to the same state after some time.

It would be great to take another deep breath and try to solve these unhealthy relations once again. Stop for the moment, talk, ask for help. Yes, it would be great… but unfortunately in most situations we don’t have time for this. We can’t just tell our customer that we need a break and we will get back to him/her with new strength, power and motivation after some time. Just after we will learn how to convert our current relations into something working well.
Both teams had to work on their functionalities and (which is more than certain) they had to work, talk and cooperate with one another.

Because of all tensions between them, communication process, agreeing and discussing were problematic. And sometimes even “short and easy” meetings turned around into “another blame game”. Who? Why? What for?

No one wants to find himself in the situation like this, but what can I say? World is not a perfect place, but … it’s good enough. Thanks to this we can learn and grow. Thanks to this we also find opportunities that we even didn’t look for.

tackle one thing at a time

How they could minimize the risk of failure once again next time?
There's no silver bullet, unfortunately. Effective communication and good relations aren’t easy to achieve. Even if we are talking about people who like to work with one another and who have got similar points of view from time to time. And it’s getting far more harder if we have to work with another team which is a bunch of totally different characters.

But we are there. Let’s start slowly, carefully. Let’s take the simplest thing. Let’s start with something at what all teams looking at more less the same way. It will let us avoid arguments, it proves them that they can work with one another. It shows them that success is possible, even if they are sitting in the same room.
And step by step, meeting after meeting (it can be even 15 minutes discussion, make it as short as possible) they will learn how to talk with one another without conflict.

But if you want to reach that place you need to remember to look at any sign of disturbance, any offtopic. If there’s “something is looming” it’s easy to add some sarcastic comment or put irony between a lines. This can fast change into something bigger, it can bring them to the topics that are problematic for long time. You don’t want this. At least not right now. You want to and have to first show them that cooperation doesn’t need to be the worst thing in the world. That’s why you need to listen and watch everything and if there are any need - take a break. 15 minutes? Half an hour? A day? Take as much as would be necessary and get back to the subject when everyone calms down.

One thing at a time. It will help you make meetings short. And with an agenda no one will be upset if you will politely tell him or her to stop, because “this is not the part of the problem that we want to solve”.
If you will allow for talking about more than one thing, problems can mixed up and something which is more problematic can have impact on taking decision on something which was expected as easy to solve. Details are becoming important or even the most important. In such an atmosphere most of us not talking about problems anymore, there is place only for emotions and the bigger tensions there were, the worst will be the end of the discussion.

Another thing is that is easier to find win-win solution when you have only one problem to solve. And the reasons why are exactly the same as the one presented above. If you agreed on something and you are touching another topic, more problematic one, it can have impact on already made decisions. That’s why it’s better to end the meeting and schedule another one later. Let the solution stabilize and then move forward.

Let’s improve something!

Don’t wait for the moment when problem will escalate. I know that the worse situation is, the harder it is to start, but on the other hand the sooner you will start, the sooner you will notice positive aspects of the taken actions.

And what are you doing when you find yourself in a situation when cooperation between people is hard?