Building Better Cross-Functional Collaboration

Every time I mix functions in a room, the same thing happens. And it tells me everything about what executive teams aren’t doing.

“The best part of this program has been getting to know people across the business.”

I looked around the room. Sixteen heads nodding.

This happens at the end of every leadership development program I facilitate. People talk about the content they’ve learned, the skills they’re developing.

Then someone makes the comment about connection. And everyone—everyone—agrees.

Because now they have people they can call when they need clarification on a project. Someone they can text with a quick question instead of sending a formal email up the chain.

Colleagues who understand their challenges because they’ve spent time together working through real problems.

This isn’t a networking problem. It’s a leadership problem.

I see this pattern everywhere. Culture advisory boards. Talent process steering committees. Cross-functional leadership meetings.

Every single time I intentionally mix functions in a room, people tell me how valuable it is to finally know their colleagues from other departments.

Your executive team’s job is to model this. Create the bridges. Make cross-functional collaboration the norm, not the exception.

And it’s not rocket science. It’s flyover country 101.

Because here’s what I learned observing grain silos in my hometown in rural Illinois: You don’t break down silos. You build bridges between them.

The silos exist for a reason—they keep different seeds separate and organized. But they’re connected, so the system works as a whole.

Your organization needs its silos. Finance needs to be finance. Operations needs to be operations.

But if your leadership team isn’t building and modeling bridges between functions, you’re leaving collaboration to chance.

And your people will keep rediscovering what they should have known all along: they work better when they actually know each other.

Here’s where to start:

1. Schedule a quarterly cross-functional lunch. Finance + operations + marketing. No agenda. Just connection.
2. Make introductions public. When two functions need to collaborate, introduce them in Slack or email. Model the bridge.
3. Ask one curious question per week. “Help me understand how your team approaches X.”

What’s one bridge your executive team could build this quarter? Put 20 minutes on the calendar this week to sketch it out.

More about me and 110 West Group HERE.