Georgia may be taking Tennessee to court. The goal? Move the state line 1.1 miles to the north, back to the 35th parallel that marked Georgia’s northernmost boundary when
Tennessee became a state in 1796. It turns out that a mapmaker, James Camak, incorrectly calculated the line and marked it with a stone boundary marker in 1818. Since no one has corrected the problem, about 51 square miles of Georgia have been treated as part of Tennessee ever since.

The reason it is coming up again is a simple one – Georgia wants water from the Tennessee River. But unraveling a boundary problem that is almost 200 years old will be tough. Families bought and sold what they believed was Tennessee land. Children were educated in Tennessee schools. Taxes were collected by the Tennessee government. It’s a mess that could have been largely avoided if the problem had been corrected in 1826 when Camak first acknowledged his error.

Unless you want a similar mess, you’ve got to monitor and maintain your workgroup boundaries carefully. In business, boundaries are simply borders between areas of responsibility. For example, most companies have a business unit charged with customer service; if the task has to do with keeping the customer satisfied, it’s supposed to be happening here. Similarly, companies usually have a department charged with managing finances; decisions about how money is spent or invested are supposed to be happening here.

In recent years though, poor communication between areas of responsibility has in effect created “silos,” tall, rigid communication patterns that hamper teamwork. As a result, some organizations have intentionally blurred boundaries, creating slogans like “Customer service is everyone’s responsibility.” Others have attempted to right the problem by creating cross-functional teams where representatives from each function work together as one unit. No matter what your structure or philosophy, maintaining a mutual agreement about where your responsibility starts and ends increases productivity. Here are some boundary problems that could hurt you:

• Expanding Your Boundaries When You Shouldn’t: Well-meaning managers often take on more than their fair share of responsibility “just to get the job done.” This usually occurs when a sister department is behind schedule, unwilling to cooperate or unable to do the job to your satisfaction. Frustrated, you take on more work than you should because it seems easier to do the job yourself than to fix the problem with the sister department. Temporarily doing someone else’s job may be necessary, but take care that you are not permanently compensating for someone else’s poor performance.

• Leaving Part of the Process Uncovered: If either work group misunderstands who is responsible for what, some parts of the process may go undone. This is a dangerous situation, especially when dependencies affect quality or timeliness. When negotiating what tasks your team will take on, move your thinking ahead in the process and get verbal commitment that the next department will be ready when you toss the ball to them.

• Duplicating Others’ Effort: What a waste of time and energy to do something that has already been done (or will be done) by someone else! Examples of duplication and unnecessary work include reformatting data given to you by others because what you received was not in the format you specified, rechecking calculations because you are not sure the other department did the job correctly and rehashing the rationale behind decisions that have already been made. Work to establish excellent, efficient hand-offs between the departments that connect with you in the process and you’ll save loads of time.

• Letting Your Ego Get In The Way: Boundary negotiations are one thing, but battles where leaders let their egos drive can get ugly. Yes, you might be gaining or losing responsibility but this doesn’t have to affect your self-esteem. In either case, realize that you’ve just encountered a cognitive disturbance (a situation where your environment has been altered in ways you interpret as negative) and now it’s your turn to use your best coping skills. Understand that the way you handle this situation could have a major impact on your career. Think through your actions and proceed with caution and maturity.

It turns out that Georgia may not win it’s boundary battle after all, thanks to a legal principle known as “adverse possession.” In essence, this law suggests that if you knew something should be fixed and you didn’t take steps to fix it, then you’ve lost your claim by “implicitly complying” with the situation. Take care that any boundary issues you encounter stay on the front burner in your mind. While you might allow them to remain unsettled for a time, by actively renegotiating you can keep the problem from becoming water under the bridge.