In today’s business landscape, there’s a common understanding that breaking down barriers between siloed teams can lead to better outcomes across the board. Collaborative work across departments—whether in IT, marketing, product development, or operations—has been shown to deliver solutions that are more aligned with the needs of the entire organisation. However, implementing a matrixed organisational structure or rolling out cross-functional teams can be a lengthy, complex, and sometimes costly process. For many organisations, the challenge becomes: how can you foster collaboration and reap the benefits without fully restructuring your teams?
Here are two effective strategies that can help create cross-functional alignment without requiring a major overhaul.
1. Focus on Downstream Outcomes, Not Team Outputs
The first strategy is to shift your focus from inspecting the outputs of each functional team to measuring the outcomes they collectively achieve. Many organisations traditionally evaluate teams based on the tasks they complete, or their “outputs”—but this often fails to capture whether those tasks are advancing the organisation’s larger goals. By concentrating on outcomes, you can encourage teams to think about their work’s impact beyond their immediate responsibilities.
For instance, consider an architecture team whose primary goal is to create reusable design patterns for system structures. Meanwhile, a cybersecurity team is tasked with implementing security controls across various applications. Instead of viewing these tasks in isolation, it’s valuable for each team to understand how their contributions intersect. By acknowledging that these tasks ultimately converge to create a more secure, efficient product for the business, they are more likely to communicate and collaborate naturally.
When teams know how their work directly affects overarching business objectives, they gain a greater sense of ownership. This understanding often encourages a more cooperative approach, where teams move beyond isolated tasks and toward broader goals. By creating awareness around these interconnected outcomes, you foster a more collaborative culture organically—without restructuring teams.
2. Create Upstream Goals That Reflect Business Objectives
The second approach is to focus on setting goals, KPIs, or OKRs that are aligned above individual team functions and rooted in business-wide objectives. By doing this, you create a shared vision and establish benchmarks that connect the separate activities of each team.
For example, let’s say a business goal is to improve customer experience and satisfaction by 20% over the next year. You could set shared goals for the IT, customer service, and product development teams that each play a role in this. Instead of isolated KPIs, you could create an OKR that asks teams to work together to achieve this customer-centric outcome. This shared goal fosters a sense of joint accountability, where teams are motivated to collaborate because their achievements are linked.
In addition to setting aligned goals, ensure that rewards and incentives are tied to achieving these shared objectives. Traditional structures often incentivise teams based on their internal milestones, such as “number of issues resolved” or “number of new features added.” By shifting incentives to reflect business-wide outcomes, you encourage teams to think beyond departmental success. When team rewards are linked to collaborative achievements, they’re far more likely to view other teams as partners rather than as separate entities working toward unrelated targets.
Bringing It All Together: Measure Value and Drive Change
Combining these two strategies enables you to create a culture where measuring value is central. When teams understand how their work impacts the organisation and have shared goals tied to measurable outcomes, collaboration becomes a by-product of clear priorities and aligned objectives. Here’s how to ensure these strategies lead to meaningful change:
- Define Impact Clearly: Make sure all teams understand the larger business impacts of their work. This can be accomplished through regular communication, workshops, and business-level metrics.
- Set Goals That Drive Collaboration: Develop shared goals that encourage teams to work across departments. Use business objectives to frame these goals, so each team understands their contribution to the bigger picture.
- Incentivise Teamwork: Design reward systems that recognise and value cross-team efforts and outcomes. When people see the rewards in working together, they’re more likely to embrace collaboration.
- Monitor and Adjust: Track progress and be ready to adjust goals as necessary. Collaboration initiatives often need time to mature, so monitor the effectiveness of your goals and incentives and make adjustments where needed.
Through this focus on downstream outcomes and upstream goals, organisations can foster a more collaborative environment without the complexities of a major structural overhaul. By shifting from a mindset of isolated outputs to interconnected outcomes, you unlock the potential for greater innovation, efficiency, and alignment with the business’s needs.
Ultimately, the goal is to create a structure where every team feels connected to the organisation’s broader mission. As teams start to view their contributions through the lens of larger business outcomes, they’ll naturally work together more effectively, creating a positive impact that benefits the entire organisation.
Curious about how to make collaboration a core part of your organisation? Let’s discuss how a targeted approach could benefit your team.
