Are you really collaborating—or just cooperating? There’s a difference, and here’s why it matters
- Cooperation is not collaboration. Sophisticated organizations understand that real collaboration builds a culture of shared accountability which propels growth.
- A lack of shared understanding, time, and conflicting KPIs are the three biggest barriers to driving cross-functional collaboration.
- Content is uniquely effective in its ability to unify cross-functional teams.
Let me set the scene. Your sales team is under pressure to create content for a critical prospecting need, but they’re unaware of the treasure trove of existing content that could be repurposed to meet their goals. Instead, they spend valuable time crafting new briefs and making requests to an already overwhelmed content production team. Meanwhile, your brand team is brainstorming a new content-centric campaign, only to discover that it’s eerily similar to a product launch that your PMMs are already working on with the content team. The result? A flurry of meetings to untangle the mess and find a solution that doesn’t compromise either team’s objectives.
These scenarios are all too familiar in siloed organizations. But what if your teams could work together seamlessly, leveraging each other’s expertise and resources to drive growth? That’s the difference between cooperation and collaboration.
Cross-functional alignment is crucial to achieve operational excellence, and unlocking your team’s potential. And as Head of Insight for a team of content experts who often work across every facet of a business, I’ve witnessed firsthand the transformative power of true collaboration.
The difference between cooperation and collaboration
Cooperation involves working with others to achieve individual goals, but it implies individual ownership, where each person or team defines their goals in isolation and is responsible for their contributions.
In contrast, collaboration involves working together to first define and then achieve a shared goal, with a sense of mutual responsibility and ownership. It implies a collective effort, where team members share their skills, knowledge, and expertise with an understanding of how doing so will benefit not only themselves, but the organization.
Now, let’s picture a very different scene. Your product, brand, marketing, sales, and analytics teams gather quarterly, united by a shared purpose. As a leader, you’ve already briefed them on the year’s desired outcomes, and provided a clear update in the most recent company-wide Town Hall. Expectations are clear, and everyone is on the same page. Now, they come together to define their department’s key work streams that will drive success. They identify the content needs: storytelling for the brand team, technical content for the product team, and they establish measurable indicators to hold each workstream – and team – accountable. They also know how to tap into the existing content library, repurposing and redesigning assets to maximize efficiency. With a clear plan in place, each team springs into action, knowing that cross-functional support is just a call away. If obstacles arise, they can rely on their colleagues to provide informed and timely assistance. It’s a beautiful thing – a symphony of collaboration, where every team is working in harmony to achieve a common goal.
Why then, is it such a rarity? Teams often think they’re collaborating when they’re actually just cooperating, especially in organizations that are cross-functionally working together without real alignment. Recent Gartner research points to the pitfalls of confusing the two concepts, claiming that 78% are weighed-down by “too many meetings, too much peer feedback, unclear decision-making authority, and too much time spent getting buy-in from stakeholders.”
Because true collaboration is built on a foundation of trust and mutual respect, I’ve also observed how it can encourage a culture of experimentation.
Collaboration yields a stronger output through granting individuals the opportunity to build an understanding and appreciation of different perspectives. Collaboration also expands an individual’s sphere of influence and fosters a happier work culture. Moreover, it breeds a culture of shared accountability, which propels growth and adaptability.
The most common barriers to collaboration
There are many reasons – intentional or not – that organizations settle for cooperation over collaboration.
- Shared understanding: Teams may not understand the value of collaborating with intention. Collaboration is not making a decision by a committee. This can get in the way of “getting stuff done”. Fostering shared accountability simply means that all parties understand the “why”, project ownership and individual R&Rs for those involved. One business unit may lean into collaborative inputs from cross-functional stakeholders to enhance their output and capture key requirements they may not have considered. But there still needs to be a singular driver that’s responsible for moving a project along and keeping contributors and consultants on track. Organizations must first nurture this advancement through educating teams on how collaborating with intent is crucial to their success.
- Time: As with any shift within an organization, leaders need to invest time managing this change. Teams also need to invest time in the practices that will be conducive to thoughtful collaboration–knowing exactly who to involve, when to involve them, and the ideal fidelity of input being sought out.
- Conflicting KPIs: Whilst it’s encouraging to see teams hyper-focused on achieving their own goals, there is often an unwillingness to collaborate due to the perception that doing so may hinder a team’s progress. For marketing and sales teams, this often leads to blind-spots or missed opportunities across the customer journey. To communicate this change, to enhance efficiencies and to deliver across multiple KPIs, organizations need to understand how to make content work for them.
How content drives cross-functional collaboration
Content is leveraged across all aspects of a customer lifecycle. It touches every facet of an organization. In a truly integrated and collaborative organization, the content team plays a vital role in facilitating cross-functional alignment. By engaging stakeholders from departments including marketing, sales, customer success, technical product stakeholders, and the executive team, the content team can ensure that everyone is aligned.
To achieve this, the content team should meet regularly with cross-functional stakeholders across select content lifecycle processes to share learnings and insights from all areas of the business, through regular automated dashboards, scheduled readouts, email updates, and all-staff meetings.
Moreover, the content team should have full visibility into how cross-functional teams value and use content across the organization. This means that executive leadership needs to understand the ROI of content to invest in it–they need to see a clear connection to business outcomes. Other cross-functional teams should not only be open to collaborating with the content team but also proactive in partnering with them to support each other’s business unit KPIs.
Content is a unifying force for cross-functional teams
Content is the linchpin that connects cross-functional teams. By strategically positioning content teams, marketing leaders can break down silos, drive alignment, and unlock growth. Here, multiple stakeholders work together to achieve shared goals and drive business success. If this all sounds too good to be true, it’s not. We’ve seen firsthand how a well-integrated content team can build a culture of genuine collaboration—in fact, we’re often the guiding hand in making it happen.