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Can't We All Just Get Along?
- Logan McKnight
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
The friction between your office and field teams isn't attitude. It's ignorance... and it's avoidable.
Does this sound familiar?
Your team in the field thinks your admin department is a bunch of penny-pinching Gen-Xers who don't understand how crazy their day is.
Your admin team thinks you hired a bunch of overpaid brats who can't turn in their paperwork or respond to an email to save their life.
And you're stuck in the middle, wondering why everyone is So. Damn. Petty.
Here's the thing: it's not petty. And it's not just "office drama." It's toxic behavior that leads to a toxic culture that people don't want to be a part of.
Your teams are operating blind to each other's world, and it's your job to fix it.
What your team doesn't realize:
The tech or rep who didn't submit their paperwork isn't lazy. They got pulled into a 9-hour case, drove an hour home, and collapsed.
The admin who sent that "urgent" email about missing documentation isn't being difficult. They're getting pressure from billing because claims are getting denied.
Neither side sees the other's reality. So they fill in the blanks with assumptions.
And assumptions turn into resentment pretty fast.
This isn't a culture problem. It's a visibility problem.
Remote teams cause silos to form. It allows people to create stories about each other instead of truly understanding one another.
Now you've got friction that slows everything down: scheduling, billing, communication, morale.
And here's the hard truth: It is your job to fix, not complain about.
Three ways to start:
1. Department spotlights. Once a month, someone from a different department walks the team through what they actually do. The problems they deal with. The downstream impact when things slip. No blame - just visibility.
2. Cross-functional projects. Put people on small teams together across departments. When a rep or tech works alongside someone from billing on a process improvement, they stop being "the admin people" and start being Jessica, who's dealing with the same broken system they are.
3. Liaisons in leadership meetings. Bring someone from the field into your ops meetings. Bring someone from admin into your clinical conversations. Let decisions get pressure-tested by the people who have to live with them.
No shortcuts.
This isn't about forced team-building or pizza parties.
It's about creating understanding so your people stop fighting each other and start fixing the actual problems.
That's leadership.
The Reality:
Having a team that gets along isn't a "nice to have," it's a MUST for any company that is looking to scale and grow sustainably.
If you want help figuring out where the breakdown actually is, that's what I do.
Reach out today if you need some help getting your teams on the same page.
Logan McKnight
Logan McKnight is an Executive Advisor and Consultant for med-tech leaders.
With 20 years of experience building teams and growing companies in med-tech, she helps executives lead without burning out and build leadership teams that create impact.
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