Collaborating On Cross-Functional Goals

A common partnership snafu is that companies want partnership success, but don’t provide the resources to get there. I heard of a case where a whole marketing team quit, the partnerships team was given no marketing support, and they didn't yet have an integration with product -- and yet, the CEO expected the partnership strategy to deliver instant revenue. Wild. But not uncommon. Partnerships can't thrive in a vacuum. They need cross-functional support—marketing, product integration, sales enablement—all aligned to succeed. Before you set revenue targets for your partnerships, ask yourself: Do we have the resources to support them? If the answer is no, you have to help your leadership teams to reconsider their expectations. To help create the cross-functional support needed for partnerships to thrive, here are four strategies: 1. Involve Cross-Functional Leaders from the Very Beginning Bring key leaders from marketing, sales, and product into the partnership planning phase. Early involvement gives them a sense of ownership and ensures they understand how partnerships align with their own goals. Strategy: Schedule a kick-off meeting with stakeholders from each relevant department. Create a shared roadmap that outlines how partnerships will impact each team and their specific contributions. 2. Tie Partnership Success to Department KPIs To gain buy-in, tie partnership goals directly to the KPIs of each department. Aligning partnership outcomes with what each team is measured on ensures they have skin in the game. Strategy: During planning sessions, ask each department head how partnerships can contribute to their targets. Build specific KPIs for each function into the overall partnership strategy. 3. Create a Resource Exchange Agreement Formalize the support needed from each department with a resource exchange agreement. This sets clear expectations on what each function will contribute—whether it's a dedicated product team member for integrations or marketing resources for co-branded campaigns. It turns vague promises into commitments. Strategy: Draft a simple document that outlines the roles, responsibilities, and deliverables each team will provide, then get sign-off from department heads and the executive team. 4. Demonstrate Early Wins for Buy-In Quick wins go a long way toward securing ongoing resources. Identify a small pilot project with an internal team that shows immediate impact. Whether it's a small co-marketing campaign or a limited integration, these early successes build momentum and demonstrate the value of supporting partnerships. Strategy: Select one or two partners to run a pilot with, focused on delivering measurable outcomes like leads generated or product adoption. Use this success story to demonstrate value to other departments and secure further commitment. Partnership success requires cross-functional alignment. Because partnerships don’t happen in a silo.

Over the years, I've discovered the truth: Game-changing products won't succeed unless they have a unified vision across sales, marketing, and product teams. When these key functions pull in different directions, it's a death knell for go-to-market execution. Without alignment on positioning and buyer messaging, we fail to communicate value and create disjointed experiences. So, how do I foster collaboration across these functions? 1) Set shared goals and incentivize unity towards that North Star metric, be it revenue, activations, or retention. 2) Encourage team members to work closely together, building empathy rather than skepticism of other groups' intentions and contributions. 3) Regularly conduct cross-functional roadmapping sessions to cascade priorities across departments and highlight dependencies. 4) Create an environment where teams can constructively debate assumptions and strategies without politics or blame. 5) Provide clarity for sales on target personas and value propositions to equip them for deal conversations. 6) Involve all functions early in establishing positioning and messaging frameworks. Co-create when possible. By rallying together around customers’ needs, we block and tackle as one team towards product-market fit. The magic truly happens when teams unite towards a shared mission to delight users!

Every time you draw an org chart, you're picking sides in battles that haven't started yet. That's just human wiring. Social identity theory shows people quickly form in-groups and out-groups, even on trivial distinctions. Any structure you choose will naturally create "us vs. them" dynamics. Without intentional design, you get the classic blame cycles: Sales says Marketing sends bad leads, Marketing says Sales doesn't follow up, and Engineering blames both teams for changing requirements mid-sprint. But you can architect your organization so those tribal instincts work for you instead of against you. Here's how: Design for the Work --------------------- ↳ Organize around the work. Map how value flows to the customer and align teams to that flow. Don't organize around internal convenience—and definitely don't design around specific people. Organize around the critical path from idea to customer value. ↳ Clarify decision authority. Ambiguity breeds conflict and delays. Be explicit about who decides, who's consulted, and who's informed. Unclear authority creates either turf wars or decision paralysis. ↳ Define cross-team handoffs. Wherever work passes between groups, nail down who owns what, what "done" looks like, and how problems get escalated. The real risk isn't within teams; it's in the transitions between them. Align the Incentives --------------------- ↳ Set common goals. Give cross-functional groups a small set of shared outcomes—revenue growth, customer retention, cost savings or any other collectively important target. Use cascading goals and KPI trees to show how individual work connects to the bigger picture. This keeps everyone pointed in the same direction instead of optimizing their own corner. ↳ Align rewards with cooperation. If bonuses are based only on silo performance, you'll get silo behavior. Shared metrics and joint outcomes encourage people to actually help each other succeed. Enable the Collaboration -------------------------- ↳ Support cross-functional work. Make sure teams have the data, tools, and forums needed to work together effectively. If those supports aren't intentional, collaboration erodes under daily pressures and competing priorities. You can't eliminate tribal instincts; they're hardwired. But you can architect your organization so those instincts work for you instead of against you. You probably can’t eliminate "us vs. them" entirely. But you can design so the structure channels natural group dynamics toward shared execution. #strategy #execution #orgdesign #teamwork

had a call with a Chief of Staff last week—they’re testing a bold idea. they’re forming temporary pods—cross-functional groups focused on specific goals—and setting OKRs just for those pods. got me thinking... why isn’t this the norm? we assume teams naturally align around big goals. but how often do they work in isolation—when they shouldn’t? teams end up with function-based OKRs because they’re told that following the org chart = alignment. but anyone who’s been in a growth-stage company knows: that’s just asking teams to stay in their lanes and hoping it all adds up. what if instead of forcing OKRs into functional silos, we focused on OKRs that are useful, collaborative, and owned by the right people at the right time? something to try out: 1. start with one shared north star—one OKR. 2. break it into all the goals that need to happen to make it true. don't think about functions specifically. 3. then ask: --- what teams need to come together to move this forward? --- what skills or capabilities are needed? --- what pods (temporary “companies”) can own this and have full authority to execute? this way, OKRs become a tool for connection that we've all been begging for. it’s tangible direction with built-in freedom and buy-in—without wasting time breaking down silos.

🐅 We have a structured, clear operating rhythm at Trucker Tools that involves regular departmental planning and goal setting - things I love! However, as our company scaled last year, we started to run into the ever-scary territory that everyone who's worked at a scale-up is familiar with: different departments were setting slightly different goals and prioritizing slightly differently from one another. We were losing cross-functional alignment on our most important initiatives. It was just too tough to completely sync comms up and down chains of communication across siloed departments. How did we bring back some of that agile, focused energy? We made things real simple and introduced Tiger Teams to deliver on our top 3 strategic priorities for the quarter. Tiger teams must include: ✅ A clear, measurable mission: "Complete XX in YY." 🙋♀️ A single team leader, who is ultimately accountable for the team's delivery 🏄♂️ Cross-functional team members of all levels who are responsible for delivery - these are NOT department or team leads necessarily, but instead the individuals who actually are doing the work, so that management chains don't get in the way of problem solving 🔢 A Google Sheet with clear action items, owners, weekly updates, visible to the entire company, so that everyone can stay updated on where things lie 💻 Weekly 15 minute standups to drive accountability, momentum, camaraderie, and provide a window for problem-solving The result? We hit every tiger team "mission" in Q1 and Q2, and Q3 is off to a great start. Even as our business has scaled and gotten more complex, returning to simple, nimble, problem-solving teams has been an unlock for us. Have you used Tiger Teams in your organization? Share your experiences below! 🚀