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Insights function & business

Cross-functional / silos / org change

42 indexed claims · 24 guests · peaked 2025-Q2

Cross-functional / silos / org change

Overview

Cross-functional silos are among the most persistent structural problems in market research — and these conversations reveal that the root causes are human before they are organizational. Guests consistently trace silos not to broken process but to comfort with separation, absent shared language, and gatekeeper models that starve teams of the research cadence they need. The editorial center of gravity is a tension between diagnosis and design: while every guest agrees silos harm speed and quality, the remedies proposed range from structural embedding (the Atlassian Triad, Centers of Excellence, live cross-functional readouts) to cultural interventions (shared success metrics, repeated socialization) to something radically simpler — just getting siloed teams to talk to each other. The deepest conviction running through all of it: insights professionals who break silos rarely do so by asserting superiority — they do it by getting curious about what happens on the other side of the wall.

From the corpus

  • If you understand the business you work in, you will understand business in general — your own employer is a business with finance and product functions, so learning it builds the cross-functional fluency that makes you a better partner to your customers. — Zontziry Johnson, Ep. 62 · cl-zontziry-johnson-026
  • Putting ChatGPT on every desktop is not an AI strategy; effective adoption requires culture, runway for absorption, and patience — analytical and quantitative people often struggle with the more complex tools and need C-suite-driven cultural support. — Idil Miriam Cakim, Ep. 7 · cl-idil-cakim-019
  • The 4D process — Define, Discover, Dream, Design — embeds empathy into innovation by uncovering insights with cross-functional stakeholders rather than presenting insights to them, producing shared ownership that converts colleagues into champions. — Lindsey Goodman, Ep. 13 · cl-lindsey-goodman-009
  • In enterprise organizations with established ways of working, consensus building with skeptical stakeholders early in the chartering process is critical — resistance to a new centralized model dissipates when those stakeholders help define it. — Kylee Lessard, Ep. 46 · cl-kylee-lessard-005
  • AI democratization is a net positive: it lifts the conversation on both sides, forces researchers to hone their craft and land impact precisely, and creates better cross-functional partnerships through shared tools and multiple perspectives. — Tanya Pinto, Ep. 5 · cl-tanya-pinto-008
  • Scaling research across an enterprise is as much a mindset shift as a mechanics problem; the binding constraint is convincing teams that research is something they are allowed to do, not just something done to them by specialists. — Amberly Miller, Ep. 37 · cl-amberly-010
  • Researchers should be embedded directly in product and design teams (the Atlassian Triad model); when product, design, and research share full context at every stage, the team is faster, less siloed, and the table is bigger. — Amberly Miller, Ep. 37 · cl-amberly-022
  • The biggest challenge in packaging development is not research quality but internal organizational politics — cross-functional teams that lack a shared success language make misaligned decisions despite good intentions. — Matthew Salem, Ep. 32 · cl-matthew-salem-019

Contributing guests

Episodes in Cross-functional / silos / org change

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