I once worked with a B2B client whose organizational structure provided me a schooling in how not to operate.

Their company wasn’t a unified entity but a collection of competing fiefdoms, each with its own agenda and communication style.

The sales team operated under what seemed like an Official Secrets Act, guarding customer insights like dragons on a gold hoard.

Getting even basic information required diplomatic negotiations on a level that could probably solve the Ukraine crisis.

Their leadership made brief, puzzling appearances like visiting dignitaries — parachuting in with cryptic proclamations about “strategic pivots” before vanishing again without much clarification. All that work that’s been invested? Call it learning.

Their internal marketing team functioned as a Department of Watering Things Down. Bold ideas entered their review process; only bland platitudes exited.

Their oft-restated mission: “Let’s not risk being too salesy” (translation: “Let’s ensure we’re completely forgettable”).

Most fascinating was how we external agencies formed our own shadow alliance. Despite technically competing for budget, we created a more functional team than what we could see within the client organization.

We compared notes, shared intelligence, and collaboratively translated contradictory directives into coherence. It was fun, and very pleasant.

Why did we do all that? Because we understood what the internal teams had forgotten: we’re ultimately judged on business results, not departmental politics. That’s what we care about most.

I’m super grateful to see my current clients operate with much more internal harmony and cross-functional collaboration.

The difference in results is striking — when teams align around customer outcomes rather than protecting territorial boundaries, innovation accelerates and market performance improves dramatically.

In I Need That, I explore how organizational silos destroy product momentum. When teams optimize for their own metrics instead of customer outcomes, the result is invariably a disjointed experience no one actually wants.

Product Payoff: Slack transformed internal communication by designing their product explicitly to break down organizational silos. CEO Stewart Butterfield focused relentlessly on cross-functional transparency, building features like channels, threads, and integrations specifically to combat the information hoarding that plagues traditional corporate structures.

Slack’s success comes from recognizing how the greatest productivity barrier in most companies isn’t lack of tools but lack of information sharing between teams.

Action for today: Look closely at your organization’s information flow from a customer perspective. How many handoffs must occur to resolve one customer issue? How many departments hold crucial pieces of customer insight that never reach product teams?

Document one specific process where departmental boundaries create friction, then experiment with a cross-functional “pod” approach to that challenge instead of traditional departmental handoffs.

Have you run into — or worked to improve — an organization where departments operated more as competitors than collaborators?

Poke that reply arrow and share your experience navigating or transforming corporate silos.

Or reach out to my team of B2B product marketing consultants at Graphos Product.