The project requires sales, IT, and product management. All three divisions have committed. The project manager has a timeline, a budget, and an engagement from executive leadership. On paper, everything is clear. In practice, the following happens: Sales prioritizes day-to-day business and delivers input two weeks late. IT has its own sprint cycles and can only schedule the project for next quarter. Product management waits for results from both sides and does nothing in the meantime. The project manager escalates, but to whom?
Cross-divisional collaboration does not fail due to lack of will. It fails because performance agreements, budgets, and career paths are organized vertically, while the most important tasks run horizontally.
A department head I supported during a cross-divisional digitalization project was on the verge of giving up after four months. Not because the project was too complex, but because he had to beg for resources in every meeting that formally belonged to another division head. “I am accountable for the result, but I have no control over the means.” This dilemma is not an isolated case. It is the standard problem of cross-divisional work and has three structural causes: vertical incentives for horizontal tasks, because no division head is measured on how well they contribute to someone else’s project. Resource conflicts without an arbiter, because the project manager has no authority over employees from other divisions. And unclear governance, because the questions of who decides, who has veto power, and who is accountable are never explicitly answered.
| On Paper | In Practice |
|---|---|
| “We collaborate across divisions.” | Each division optimizes its own objectives |
| “The project manager coordinates.” | The project manager requests, reminds, and escalates |
| “Executive leadership supports.” | Leadership has not discussed the project since the kickoff |
| “Resources are provided.” | Resources are promised and diverted to day-to-day business |
The cost extends beyond the individual project. Every failed cross-divisional initiative sends a signal: collaboration does not pay off. Committed employees learn it is better to stay within their own division. Leaders learn they are punished for cross-divisional accountability when things go wrong, but not rewarded when they succeed. Three levers break this pattern.
Not a committee. Not a steering group. One person who is authorized to decide priority conflicts and who is also held accountable for them. This person does not need to have disciplinary authority over all participants. But they need a clear engagement that has been articulated by executive leadership and communicated to all involved divisions. Without this engagement, the project manager is a coordinator without leverage.
John Kotter describes a recurring pattern in his research on organizational change: initiatives fail when the leadership coalition behind them is too weak. This applies to transformation projects just as much as to cross-divisional initiatives. A project manager with a verbal engagement that no one knows about has no coalition. A project manager whose engagement is articulated by the board in the presence of all involved division heads has one.
Executive leadership must do three things: articulate the engagement clearly and publicly, be prepared to decide priority conflicts promptly when they are escalated, and recognize the success of cross-divisional collaboration as visibly as divisional successes. If only divisional results are celebrated, leaders optimize their divisions, not the overall result.
As long as a division head is exclusively measured by their own divisional results, every contribution to a cross-divisional project is a losing proposition from their perspective. The solution is not to appeal to goodwill. The solution is to adjust the incentives.
Explicitly include contributions to cross-divisional initiatives in the performance agreements of the involved leaders. Not as a soft secondary objective, but as a measurable component that counts in performance evaluation. If traditional annual objectives are too rigid, shorten the cycle: quarterly shared objectives make silo thinking immediately visible and force participants to regularly agree on shared results.
A division head told me about a project that, after months of standstill, was suddenly completed in three weeks. The board had said: “This project has priority. Anyone blocking resources will personally explain to me why.” This is not a recommended leadership style, but it illustrates what cross-divisional collaboration most often fails on: lack of backing and lack of consequences.
Resource conflicts will occur in cross-divisional projects. This is not a question of if, but when. Define in advance how such conflicts will be resolved. Who decides when two divisions claim the same employee for different priorities? Within what timeframe must an escalation be answered? And what happens if the answer is not forthcoming?
These rules seem unspectacular, but they are the difference between a project that stalls at the first friction and one that moves forward despite friction. At least as important: Remove the stigma from escalation. In many organizations, escalation is seen as an admission of weakness or failure. This leads project managers to escalate far too late, when the damage has already occurred. Escalation is not personal failure. It is a professional process for resolving conflicts that are structurally unsolvable at the working level. Make this explicit in your area.
First: For the most important cross-divisional initiative within your area of responsibility, is there exactly one person who holds accountability for the overall result, and is their engagement known to all participants? If not, clarify this this week.
Second: Does the contribution to cross-divisional initiatives appear in the performance agreements of all involved leaders? If it only appears as a “soft objective” or not at all, you know why collaboration is stalling.
Third: Ask your project manager tomorrow: “What is the biggest obstacle that is not within your sphere of influence?” And then remove it.
Most organizations preach collaboration and reward silo thinking. Not intentionally. But the incentive systems, the performance agreements, and the career paths are built so that a division head who optimizes their division is better off than one who invests time in a cross-divisional project that does not appear in any of their KPIs.
Collaboration across divisional boundaries does not work through appeals. It works through structures that reward it and through leaders who demand it.
Building Bridges Instead of Breaking Silos – Why silo thinking does not disappear through reorganization, but through targeted connections.
Accountability Without the Accountable – When no one personally stands for the result, accountability disappears into the breadth.
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