collaborate across departments

Meaning

This phrase describes the action of different teams, units, or divisions within an organization working together toward a common goal. It highlights breaking down organizational silos and fostering cross-functional communication and cooperation.

Examples

• To launch this product successfully, we need to collaborate across departments.

  To launch this product successfully, we need to collaborate across departments.

• Our new internal chat tool makes it much easier to collaborate across departments.

  Our new internal chat tool makes it much easier to collaborate across departments.

• The CEO encouraged us to collaborate across departments to spark innovation.

  The CEO encouraged us to collaborate across departments to spark innovation.

• When we collaborate across departments, we get a much broader perspective on customer needs.

  When we collaborate across departments, we get a much broader perspective on customer needs.

• It's hard to collaborate across departments when everyone is using different software.

  It's hard to collaborate across departments when everyone is using different software.

Common Mistakes

• ✗ We must collaborate between departments to solve this issue.

  ✓ We must collaborate across departments to solve this issue.

  While 'between' works for two specific departments, 'across' is the standard, natural business collocation when referring to the entire organization or multiple divisions.

• ✗ The company encourages to collaborate across departments.

  ✓ The company encourages employees to collaborate across departments.

  The verb 'encourage' requires an object (like 'employees' or 'us') before the infinitive verb phrase.

Related Expressions

Practice

• If we want to streamline the customer journey, we have to ___.

  💡 Work with different teams within the company.

  Show answer

  collaborate across departments

• The initiative failed because teams refused to ___ and shared no data.

  💡 Cooperate with other divisions.

  Show answer

  collaborate across departments