How often have you heard it said of an organisation that 'the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing'? It's common enough, for companies large or small: one individual, group or department isn't aware of something that's happening or needs to happen in another. And of course, those concerned don't intend for it to be that way, but they're too busy with their own work, don't have time to pay attention to anyone else's or tying the strings that connect them.

Certainly, it's an easy slope to slip down. Everyone's got a lot of work to do, and so long as they're able to do it, then that's what the focus is going to be on. Yet this is a stance of make do and mend, of getting by; in no way does it allow a company to perform at its maximum potential, and without being the best that it can be, no business can expect to be properly competitive in the market.

If your organisation or department is in this position, making it coordinated might seem daunting and demanding - not to mention too time consuming, when you've so much else to do. But it's really quite simple, and once you're on top of the problem, you'll have it in hand for the future.

Timing

If the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, how might it find out? Shared calendars are a great way of keeping a team together. When any given individual is always aware of what work is being done by whom and when, you find a much greater cohesion and common focus.

Consider this scenario: a large manufacturer has a problematic resourcing issue at one of its sites, and a number of tasks throughout the business need this to be addressed. For an individual working on one of those tasks not to know when the issue will be dealt with can only inhibit the completion of their own work, creating confusion, delays and a lack of productivity.

Problems may also be created when the matter is being solved, if there's uncertainty about who's solving it - many of us will have been in a situation, at some point in our careers, where we need to be able to work with a colleague or discuss with a manager only to find out that they're elsewhere doing something entirely different.

Running a shared calendar is easy - software such as Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple iCal can manage it for you - and takes away these obstacles at a stroke. When the problem will be addressed, who will be addressing, where they'll be and for how long - all this information can be made available throughout a group, department or whole company, and other team members can be given (or denied) permission to add and annotate the calendar with their own information.

Communication

Of course, having an administrative or a technological boost to improve our working practices is great. But ultimately, we still have to rely on ourselves first and foremost. The single most effective method for individuals to cooperate and to ensure that cohesion and common focus is to communicate. Having meetings can help greatly to keep a team in the know - and in situations where regular meetings may be impractical (too many people involved, perhaps, or time constraints) other forms of communication become all the more important.

Talk to colleagues, managers, employees. Send emails. Where staff are working remotely, instant messaging and mobile phones allow for a high level of contact to be maintained. There's no reason not to make sure that all concerned are kept up-to-date with changes, progress, new developments and strategies, and that anyone is able to ask questions and find the information they need when they need it.

If different parts of your organisation, or individuals within it, don't know what the rest is doing, it's because of a failure to introduce simple, quick techniques to ensure the spread of that information.

Quite simply, there is no excuse for such a deficit of coordination - not when the solutions are so easily at hand - and any business can gain from introducing those solutions. It's a question, in the end, of being organised, of all concerned taking responsibility for a coherent plan of work, rather than just taking on their current task in isolation. And it's a question whose answer is good for every business.