As technology becomes embedded into every company, communication is the soft skill that’s becoming most valued, writes Gwen Moran for fortune.com.

Whether businesses are facing a major new marketing push, location expansion, or equipment upgrade, smooth collaboration between various departments and the information technology (IT) team is essential.

Shifting the relationship is a multi-faceted challenge that requires a number of key changes. First, leadership must work on fostering empathy between technology and other departments, says Tim Wenhold, chief information officer (CIO) of Power Home Remodeling, a 2,600-employee home remodeling company based in Chester, with an 80-person IT staff to service them.

Power had a “typical” IT department, but Wenhold saw that the teams didn’t understand each other.

“What I realized early on was language was a big barrier to getting people to work together,” he says. “The way the technical people spoke about things and the way the business people spoke about things, they had two separate lexicons—it was completely different.”

So Power changed the name of the IT department to the “business technology” department, and began to cross-train teams and departments so they understood the requirements and demands of each other’s jobs.

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