A company's performance is highly dependent on the performance and collaboration of its business functions. As CEOs and Leaders prepare next-years budgets aligned to priorities, I thought I would share what it looks like if an organisation is preparing for success: As an open letter to CEOs.

To improve performance and support value-creation and problem solving, CEOs, CXOs and Leadership can consider two pillars: First, name the tough problems of the business you do not any longer want to afford and second, be prepared to protect the emerging collaboration from the resistance of the current organisational system.

Dear CEO,

we have heard you! Collaboration is the key to future success.

We are successfully aligning and collaborating in all of the current organizationally structured areas, departments, regions.

And IT is ahead this time, although sometimes known for complicating things and slowing projects down, and has already picked up and followed your call to be part of the move: Our new IT and business partnership is the platform to systematically foster collaboration across the above silos – and all reviews even were promising and positive.

We are ready and prepared for the next level of corporate wide collaboration:

CEO, now we need you: Give us and call out the tough problems you do not any longer want to afford – and which maybe only next-level collaboration can solve.

Please also be prepared to pave our path forward by supporting necessary structural changes to protect our collaboration against legacy organisational resistance. We will split & sequence the work and get it done.

We have the talent, intuition, expertise and IT at the ready. With your orientation we will build the necessary bridges in the organisation and deliver answers and results.

Let us get on it & the future is ours.

Best regards,

Business & IT

As long as you are expecting colloboration in areas you can't see it – you are observing a symptom.

The root cause is elsewhere. Address the root cause and you will observe collaboration emerge as an „unavoidable and welcomed necessity“.