In spring 2013, managers of the contract-manufacturer and product-development company MME Group met to discuss strategies that would break down residual barriers. They agreed on collective goals to improve communication between department leaders, to encourage people to ask for help and receive it, and boost sharing of resources to meet overall company goals.

To reach this end, the managers met and were paired with a person whose work style was different. The purpose was to consider ways to effectively work with an opposite personality.

“Given our desire to foster a family atmosphere at MME where members are honest, candid, and are genuinely interested in each other’s success, we wanted a mutually agreed-upon set of simple communication and behavior ground rules that could easily be hung in the office like it would be on a refrigerator in a traditional family home,” says manager Vicki Croce.

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