Breaking Down Silos: Why Cross-Functional Problem Solving Remains Our Biggest Challenge

"Help me understand how this approach helps the patient's needs being met."

This simple question from Deb Thompson during this month’s Future People at Work community meeting cut straight to the heart of what makes improvement work succeed or fail. As practitioners from manufacturing, healthcare, education, and technology sectors gathered virtually, a universal truth emerged: we're still struggling to solve problems that span departmental boundaries.

Working with silos

The Uncomfortable Truth About Process Ownership

Angela Wolfrum captured it perfectly: examining someone's process feels personal.  Process owners naturally feel defensive when others scrutinize their daily work. Yet as Susanna Watson observed, the bigger challenge emerges when "it's everybody's job to fix this process, therefore it's nobody's job."

This ownership paradox plays out daily across organizations. A broken process touches finance, product development, sales, etc. Everyone agrees it needs fixing. No one claims ultimate responsibility. 

From Tools to Awareness: A Human-Centered Revolution

The Ways of Working team is experimenting with a radical reframe. Rather than introducing 5S as another set of tools, Angela plans to present it as levels of awareness. Starting from "everything happens to me" and progressing toward "I create what's happening around me," this approach acknowledges that control—not just organization—drives engagement.

Dana Miller positioned Ways of Working as "methodology translators," recognizing that most organizations already use multiple improvement approaches unconsciously. Their experiments, at the Michigan Science Center, for instance, aim to bridge the gap from strategy to execution by acknowledging what the Salt Lake City symposium revealed: siloed thinking, resistance to change, leadership buy-in challenges, and initiative fatigue plague every sector.

The 3:1 Ratio That Changes Everything

Colleen Soppelsa offered perhaps the most powerful insight: transformational work is "three parts relational, one part technical." Yet our tools, training, and certifications focus overwhelmingly on the technical quarter. We teach fishbone diagrams but not how to navigate the emotions when someone's process gets dissected. We master value stream mapping but struggle when the map crosses three departments with competing priorities.

This relational blindness shows up in Matthew Hu's observation about his dual role in product development—even when wearing multiple hats (Six Sigma, Lean, Chief Engineer), getting true cross-functional collaboration required something beyond methodologies. It required understanding that each participant brings not just functional expertise but also fears, territorial instincts, and career concerns.

Moving from Abstract to Concrete

The community's call for concrete examples reflects exhaustion with abstract frameworks. Ken Snyder's LEAN initiative is developing a Body of Knowledge that will be free and accessible. The Non-Lean CEO team, revitalized with new members, focuses on translating improvement concepts into executive language. The Lean Into AI group considers featuring "everyday practitioners" showing actual screens and real applications.

What unites these efforts? Recognition that methodology wars miss the point. As the Adjacent Communities initiative suggests, we're stronger together—ASQ, PMI, Agile, Lean, Six Sigma all solving pieces of the same puzzle.

The Path Forward

Today's discussion suggests three critical shifts:

First, acknowledge the relational before the technical. Before mapping a process, map the human dynamics around it.

Second, establish clear ownership even for boundary-spanning problems. Someone must wear the "X on their forehead".

Third, ground everything in customer need. Deb's healthcare question works universally: "How does this approach help [the customer's] needs being met?"

The October GBMP conference will host the next FPW gathering, continuing these vital conversations about making improvement work more human-centered and effective.

Continue the conversation:

• Follow FPW on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/future-people-work/ 

• Join monthly FPW discussions: https://forms.gle/yXPbCXURdfvYtjmn9 

• October 27-28 GBMP 21st Annual Northeast Lean Conference FPW Gathering: Contact Dan Fleming for details

People to Connect With: @Susanna Watson @Dana Miller @Ken Snyder @Dan Fleming @Tyson Heaton @Matthew Hu @Colleen Soppelsa @Angela Wolfrum @Deb Thompson

This post was developed through collaboration during the September 2025 FPW Monthly Community Zoom Meeting and synthesized with Claude.AI assistance. It represents ongoing work by the Future of People at Work initiative, a collaboration of Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC), GBMP Consulting Group, Central Coast Lean, The Ohio State University Center for Operational Excellence, Shingo Institute, Lean Enterprise Institute, and Catalysis.