A Wall between Marketing and Operations - Why So?

I started of my career in IT training institutes and was working as a faculty in one of the centres with a reputed brand name. Like all other places, marketing team and faculty would always work in unison, eat, and hang-out together. Suddenly the grapevine started talking that interactions between the faculty and marketing should stop and they should stop going out together. Keeping in mind the interests of the organization few sincere faculty went and quizzed the management about this issue.

The management evaded the issue but the faculty were unrelenting.Finally, one day one of the senior faculty told the so-called reason behind the fix. One of the senior faculty and a counselor were going out often and talking too much inside the centre. So the divide. We took the reason at face value and as usual the office grapevine was abuzz.

A few months after this incident the centre manager disclosed the information that the centre was not planning to renew its franchise and hence the faculty and students will be transferred to other centers. The management was planning to open a medical transcription unit in the space of the training centre.So the real reason behind the wall between marketing and operations was that the management did not want too many details about closure of the training centre to be disclosed to the faculty and students.

Most of the times, management break friendships inside office in order to protect business secrets. They don't want your colleague next chair to know about the project you are working on (very strange). But are the top managers so naive that they don't realize a person can always pick up the phone and talk after office hours. Or can send a mail to a colleagues' personal id. Or can meet at a restaurant to chill out a weekend. Won't they talk about office matters then!!! It is high time managers realize that it is a person's INTEGRITY that holds secrets not a division or break in cordial office relationships.