By cdelprincipe@hubspot.com (Curt del Principe)

86% of business leaders blame a lack of collaboration as the top reason for workplace failure, according to a survey by recruiting firm Zippia.

So you share a bunch of meetings with another team and call it cross-functional, right? Not so fast. To effectively collaborate across departments requires more than just sharing goals and countless meetings.

What does it take? We’ve asked marketing leaders from different teams (See what we did there?) at HubSpot for their top tips on cross-departmental collaboration. The result is 11 actionable suggestions that you can do today. So put down the calendar invite and read on…

• What is cross-department collaboration?
• Why is cross-department collaboration important?
• How to Collaborate Effectively Across Departments

Why is cross-department collaboration important?

Cross-functional campaigns are important because they help align teams to the same objectives, introduce fresh insights to old processes, and boost the performance of the teams involved.

Consider these statistics:

• Businesses with tightly aligned Sales and Marketing teams saw more than 200% revenue growth from marketing. (LinkedIn)
• 53% of businesses that adopted cross-functional teams reporte significant improvement in performance. (Deloitte)
• 28% of marketing leaders identified “collaborating across teams when planning marketing activities” as a top way to gain visibility within the company. (HubSpot)
• 21% of marketers say it is difficult to get the data they need from other teams. (HubSpot)

1. Ask questions and understand other departments’ priorities.

“A lot of people struggle with cross-functional projects because they don’t take the time to really understand the goals and objectives of other teams around them,” says Kyle Denhoff, HubSpot’s Director of New Media. “So one way to be really successful is to be curious and ask questions.”

Here are just a few questions to get started with:

• What are your KPIs?
• What are your hurdles?
• What outcomes do you need to get out of this project/campaign?
• How will you measure those outcomes?
• Who needs to contribute, who needs to give approval, and who just needs to be informed?

“Meet your peers,” Denhoff adds, “Ask them ‘what are they goaled on every month?’,’What are their primary objectives?’, ‘What does success look like for them?’ Then you’ll have a clearer understanding of how you can tie your work into some of their goals.”

2. Understand the other departments’ preferences.