New Processes Require New Communication Routes

A process approach must be supported by different arteries that facilitate cross boundary communication. Information has to cut horizontally across the system, instead of following the traditional pathways up and down the organization hierarchy.

Processes just don’t work well when the various functions are walled off from one another. If information has to struggle up through the chain of command in one department, make it over to another area, then dribble back down that silo to the people actually doing the work, the process is far too sluggish. So the vertical communication patterns must yield to more sideways give and take.

Word can get around a lot better moving laterally.

This means the slow-moving routes must be bypassed. Just as an interstate freeway cuts around or over a city’s clogged traffic patterns to speed travel, you have to help construct new arteries that accelerate and enrich information flow. Fast and accurate communication across the entire process, and between processes ...