I’ve worked with a lot of product teams who proudly describe themselves as cross-functional.
They’ve got representation from product, marketing, and engineering. They meet regularly. They use the same tools.
And yet — when the pressure hits, you can feel it.
They’re not collaborating.
They’re coordinating.
The difference is subtle but significant.
Coordination keeps people informed.
Collaboration creates something new together.
And far too many teams stop at the first one.
Every organization I’ve seen struggling with innovation has had a version of this problem. The product team thinks they’re aligned because everyone agreed on the roadmap. Marketing thinks they’re aligned because they’ve seen the prototype. Engineering thinks they’re aligned because they understand the requirements.
But when you listen in on their meetings, you hear three different languages describing three different problems.
Each team is brilliant — but they’re working in parallel.
Each decision is a translation, not a collaboration.
True collaboration happens when everyone is solving the same problem from a shared point of view. Not just attending the same meetings — but thinking together, learning together, and changing direction together when the evidence demands it.
The collaboration gap doesn’t always announce itself loudly. It hides in the little moments:
Each of these moments costs time and trust.
And the irony is, they all start with good intentions. Every team is trying to do their part. But without shared learning loops, “teamwork” becomes a set of disconnected efforts that happen to be on the same calendar.
The result? A product that looks cohesive from the outside but feels fragmented from the inside.
Here’s what I’ve learned: most teams don’t lack collaboration skills — they lack a shared rhythm of discovery.
They spend their energy agreeing on execution instead of exploring the problem together. They align on what to build, not why.
And once that happens, curiosity disappears.
No one feels ownership of the whole — only their piece.
I once worked with a company that had all the right ingredients: talented people, a bold idea, and plenty of resources. But every conversation started with “my team” and “their team.” Marketing was waiting on Product. Product was waiting on Engineering. And Engineering was waiting for “final” requirements.
The project moved forward — slowly, painfully, and without much conviction.
Not because anyone was wrong.
Because they weren’t truly building it together.
Real collaboration isn’t just getting people in the same room. It’s creating an environment where diverse perspectives actively shape the outcome.
It’s messy. It’s uncomfortable. It requires humility and genuine curiosity.
You can tell when a team has found that rhythm. The conversations shift from “Here’s what we built” to “Here’s what we learned.”
From “Here’s our plan” to “Here’s what we’re testing.”
From “We’re aligned” to “We’re evolving.”
That’s the moment when collaboration stops being an organizational structure and starts being a shared way of thinking.
The best leaders I’ve seen don’t just preach collaboration — they model it.
They invite product, marketing, and tech into the problem early, before the roadmap is set.
They make learning visible, so no team operates in isolation.
They reward insight, not just delivery.
And they know that collaboration isn’t about making everyone agree — it’s about creating the conditions where disagreement becomes productive.
Because in innovation, alignment without collaboration is just polite stagnation.
You might be moving fast, but you’re not moving together.
Every company says they want collaboration.
Few are willing to embrace what it actually requires: shared ownership of uncertainty.
True cross-functionality means product, marketing, and engineering aren’t passing the baton — they’re running side by side, discovering together where the finish line should even be.
That’s the kind of collaboration that builds products customers actually want.
Not the kind that fills calendars.
The kind that fills learning gaps.
Because the fastest teams aren’t the ones that have the most alignment meetings —
they’re the ones that learn in sync.