
A couple of weeks ago, I tackled a big personal hurdle of mine. I’ve led workshops, spoken on panels, been interviewed before. I’ve organized conferences, stage-managed shows, and produced events. Never have I ever been the main entertainment/speaker but off I went to the first Women in Tech: East Coast in Boston, Massachusetts. Because I think it’s important to talk about how to improve communication and relations between tech and non-tech teams.

You see, for most of my life, the representation of women in computing jobs has been decreasing while computing jobs have grown 338%. Most of the marketing, customer support, operations, etc. teams — the “non-tech” teams — that I’ve ever worked with are predominantly women. While most of the tech teams I’ve ever worked with are predominantly men. This has led to a culture of holding the work of tech teams as remarkable, magical, more valuable and necessary than non-tech teams. The expertise and credibility of the women-dominated teams are undermined and undervalued before anybody even talks to each other.

This doesn’t mean the gap across teams cannot be closed but we can’t address it without acknowledging that it will be a tough process. And a long one because when team members change, the dynamic will change and a lot of progress may be lost. Previous leaders may have bought in and prepared to require the work of everyone involved. Maybe previous team members had been educated and made aware of how they were negatively contributing to the culture. It is absolutely possible that the opposite may occur but, honestly, that’s very rarely been my experience or understanding.
“Get everyone involved, it gets them invested.”
* Quote by Ade Adewunmi & Rebecca Kemp.

This method is all about formally mixing teams and showing how important cross-team collaboration is, holding it so highly to require it at all times. From the very beginning of having someone join the team, assess whether or not they can communicate to someone on a different team. Do they respect the other team’s role and needs? Can they incorporate that information into their own approach? Then as you grow and scale as a team, organization, etc. think about the skills that will continue to build upon this. Can non-tech teams learn how to define problems and user needs to support your product team? These skills show not only investment in your individual team members but also in the proactive management of your organization’s growing pains. And don’t forget throughout the process to support your formal efforts with some room for informality and experimentation. Some of your employees may never speak in a meeting or ask a question and simultaneously be one of the sharpest analytical employees you have.
Still, this method may not always be within reach. Sometimes organizational or departmental leadership will be the main creator of the tech and non-tech gap. There may be no buy-in from all of the leadership. Sometimes we simply don’t have the social capital or rank to be able to implement this method. Then what?
Hire or build “boundary spanners.”

“Boundary spanners” are influencers, innovators, relationship builders, leaders. They’re individuals who link networks and can begin the process of establishing trust and understanding across teams. As that builds, they can then begin negotiating or mediating needs among them. Ideally, these people then plant the seeds of formal processes I mentioned above.
It’s important here to look for people who can empathize with various teams which can come from having a breadth of experiences or innate personality traits. They will need to be persistent and sociable as this method is 100% dependent on building individual relationships with team members. From all of those relationships, they then need to take all of that input in, process it, and then come out with different approaches to negotiate everyone to the same ending. Basically, this is how I’ve coped in the past with bridging teams that have different languages, perspectives, processes, and values.
But even with this one, you cannot do affect change without some support. The boundary spanner will need someone with the big-picture context to provide them with that insight. From relationships they establish, there will be some trust in them and that trust will be tested as they present and test their creative solutions. Personal relationships, however, will only go so far if teams are pitted against each other for resources or accolades.
Here’s the thing though. As we progress in our careers, there is a very strong probability that being able to communicate across teams will be increasingly required. It makes a difference that I can walk into a relationship with nearly any team and establish a good rapport. It was not as highly valued early in my career when specializing was expected but my respect for others is genuine and clear as my own leadership grows, making my own career growth exciting.
Questions?
At the end of my presentation, there were some great questions.
- How are tough conversations addressed in these contexts? This is tough because there are definitely times that the relationship I’ve established with someone is tested or taken advantage of. I do my best to draw clear boundaries between what is my responsibility as a temporary bridge and what is the responsibility of other leaders. For example, I do not fire people who are not on my team and I do not sit in on those kinds of tough conversations but I have started to learn how to express my grief and support in a productive manner. As individuals grow in their managerial or leadership capacities, they must be properly trained to gain those skills. Neither of the methods are replacements for those skills or needs.
- How do I, as a boundary spanner, prevent burnout? I responded off the cuff that I read romance novels in my spare time. But in a more professional context, I acknowledged that this can be quite draining as an introvert. So I set my schedule as much as possible to give myself one day a week without meetings. Sometimes, when I have the flexibility, that means working remotely for a day. Sometimes, that means finding corners in the office or tasks that require more focused time.
- How do you convince hiring managers to value these skills? This was asked specifically by a recruiter so I don’t know if everyone can take this advice but this requires some of that boundary spanning again. If you know that a tech team has been struggling to communicate their needs or major successes across the company, then it’s important to highlight that maybe some thought should be put into seeking candidates who are different than their current team members. Understanding a team’s current struggles, history, and helping them understand that doing the same thing with every new hire probably won’t help them nip some of these problems in the bud. My experience with tech teams is that most of them hate meetings. If they understand that some of those meetings could disappear with a more diverse pool of candidates, it’s been pretty motivating in my experience.
If you’d like a copy of my slides or to discuss what I’ve outlined above further, feel free to find me on social media at @wuster12!
