13 Tips For Breaking Down Your Company’s Internal Barriers

Communication is key to business success across all industries. Particularly in business development, it’s necessary to build strong relationships with clients, partners and teams to reach annual goals and achieve success.

It takes a village to elevate a credible brand of products or services to the next level. Therefore, an expert panel of 13 Forbes Business Development Council members offers some practical advice for overcoming internal barriers that may be holding a business back from fulfilling its greatest potential.

1. Provide Clear Directions And Communication

Providing clear directions, establishing rich and easy communication channels and promoting a growth mindset help in the creation of young leaders in every business area. Stopping the blame game and immediate correction enhance the overall culture and loyalty. Ensuring that we are all moving forward will definitely bring us together at a point. – Ahmed Ammar, LABS – Logical Applications for Business Solutions

2. Create An Action Plan

First, develop a plan. You can start with executive leadership and align company goals and objectives. Then, bring a small team together to conceptualize and build a project plan that answers the “who,” ”what,” ”when,” ”where” and “how much.” List stakeholders, identify roles and then inform the team when updates or communications are needed. Next, check on the project to see what’s working well and what’s missing. Finally, make adjustments based on what’s not working well and tweak as needed. – Emily Rose, LegalShield

3. Implement An Effective Organizational Structure And Training

Implement a clear and effective organizational structure that includes clearly defined roles and responsibilities, regular communication channels and opportunities for collaboration. Additionally, leaders can encourage open and transparent communication, regularly assess and adjust the organization’s structure and provide training and development opportunities to help employees. – Sandra Day, Purple Ribbon Office Solutions

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4. Build A Team Forum

At the height of the pandemic, we began hosting regular internal meetings to discuss pertinent issues our customers were facing. This allowed our teams to develop empathy for the customer that we were serving. Leaders should build forums where teams can explore customer motivations to buy, the buying process, why customers ask for certain features and the RFP process. – Caroline Savello, Color Health

5. Demonstrate Empathy

Remember that everyone is a human being, and it is rare that people intentionally put up barriers without a fair reason, such as protecting their time or trying to keep others accountable. Coming from this place of thought helps communication to come from a positive place of understanding and empathy rather than creating conflict. This makes it easier to work together with people. – Sarah Critchley, Microsoft

6. Align One Key Metric To Teamwork

To ensure greater success in business development, all teams supporting or working with that function should carry at least one key business development metric that aligns the work that all teams do toward an outcome and fosters more interdepartmental collaboration. – Annu Baral, LatentView Analytics

7. Lead By Example

In order to become successful as a senior leader, delegating, managing senior stakeholders and providing clear communication will be key. Fostering a culture that truly cares about employees and such internal barriers is critical, as well as clear transparent communication from the top down. Middle managers will have to be trained to identify, analyze and change such behaviors in the culture, leading by example. – Alex LLorens, Contentsquare

8. Set Up Cross-Departmental Conversations

The most effective way to overcome non-productive communication circumstances is to set up regular open communication cross-functionally. In particular, having open communication with executives and employees will bring efficiency for the bottom-up suggestions and bring fast execution for the culturally blocked resolutions for the legacy issues. It will motivate people to be good listeners. – Gyehyon Andrea Jo, MVLASF

9. Define KPIs That Are Connected

Defining interlinked KPIs across teams is essential. Top-down communication with frequent cadence is required until change management is implemented. The business development function should work as a well-oiled supply chain from lead generation until deal closure. – Raj Parameswaran, Fulcrum Digital Inc.

10. Identify Objectives And Key Results

Spend the time to explicitly outline your organization’s structure, the roles and responsibilities and the operating rhythm for the team, including the best practices for meetings and updates. That top-down direction will go a long way. Additionally, objectives and key results, when used correctly, can be a powerful tool to get the organization aligned and working toward the company-level goals. – Sparsh Mehta, Belong Home Inc.

11. Be Transparent

Clarity in goals, transparency and communication are the keys to overcoming internal barriers. If you miss any one of those three, things will fall apart. – Darshan Naik, Capgemini

12. Create A Culture Of Inclusivity

Business development leaders need to create a team that includes everyone in the organization who is required for approvals, feedback and strategy and designate their roles and responsibilities. This enables the prioritization of team communications using the team’s preferred platform such as email or chatter. It also reduces the number of people communicating so decisions can be made quickly. – Ellen Williams, Orion Global Solutions LLC

13. Provide A Sense Of Purpose And Direction

Transparency, at all levels, starting with executive leadership is so important. Leadership should clearly define and communicate the company’s strategy. This will help to align the organization with a unified vision and provide a sense of purpose and direction that will foster collaboration and reduce internal barriers. – Quyen Pham, Swoon