We’ve all heard the cliché “there is no ‘I’ in team.” But in many modern workplaces, what that actually translates to is, “I did my part, the rest isn’t my problem.”

This is the classic “throwing it over the fence” culture. Marketing creates a campaign, tosses it over the fence to Sales, and walks away. Engineering builds a feature, tosses it over to Customer Success, and moves on to the next ticket. It’s a fast track to resentment, misaligned stakeholders, and plummeting productivity.

But what if we replaced the fence with a shared table? Building a joyful, collaborative company culture is entirely possible. When teams understand how to truly support their stakeholders, work stops being a turf war and starts feeling like a shared mission.

When departments work in silos, they optimize for their own goals, not the company’s. “Throwing work over the fence” means treating handoffs as the finish line.

This creates a few major problems:

• “Collaboration Drag”: Research shows that poorly structured cross-functional work leads to endless meetings, unclear decision-making, and frustrated employees.
• Stakeholder Burnout: When internal stakeholders (like a partner department) inherit a project without context or support, they spend half their time just trying to figure out what they are supposed to do with it.
• The Blame Game: If a project fails, teams retreat to their corners. “We built it to spec,” says Product. “Well, it’s unsellable,” says Sales.

A joyful company culture operates on a different premise: Shared accountability. You haven’t succeeded until the person you handed the work to succeeds. Here is how to make that a reality:

1. Define the “Why” Together

Successful collaboration requires a shared purpose. Bring stakeholders into the room before the work begins. If IT is building a tool for HR, HR should be involved in the blueprint. When stakeholders co-create the solution, they become champions of the project rather than critics.

2. Replace Handoffs with “Handshakes”

Instead of a cold email with an attachment, institute a “handshake” process. This means a brief, synchronous alignment where the handing-off team walks the receiving team through the work, explains the nuances, and asks, “What else do you need from us to make this successful?”

3. Maintain Visibility

The project isn’t over just because it left your desk. Use centralized project management tools to create a single source of truth. If Marketing launches a campaign, they should be tracking Sales’ conversion rates and actively asking how they can optimize the messaging in real-time.

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You cannot mandate a joyful culture; it has to be modeled. If leadership operates in silos, the rest of the company will follow suit.

Leaders must be the loudest voices repeating the message of cross-functional unity.

The Role Model Approach: Imagine a VP of Product who, during a company all-hands, praises the Customer Support team for their insights that shaped a new feature, rather than just praising her own engineers. She publicly acknowledges that the product’s success belongs to both teams.

When team-minded leaders set clear expectations and actively participate in breaking down communication barriers, they create psychological safety. Employees feel empowered to step out of their narrow job descriptions and say, “I’ve finished my part, how can I help you with yours?”

There is a direct, undeniable link between this kind of joyful, unified culture and raw productivity.

When teams stop throwing things over the fence:

• Decision-making accelerates: Diverse perspectives are gathered early, meaning fewer costly pivots later.
• Redundancies vanish: Teams stop doing duplicate work because they actually know what the department next door is doing.
• Retention skyrockets: People want to work in an environment where they feel valued, connected, and supported. When employees understand how their work impacts the larger picture, they are significantly more engaged and motivated.

“No ‘I’ in team” doesn’t mean you lose your individuality. It means you recognize that your individual success is completely intertwined with the success of the person sitting next to you.

But as per usual – the choice is yours!