Communication & Influence
Connected by Design™
Cross-Functional Alignment, Communication and Collaboration
Turn functional expertise into coordinated enterprise performance through clearer outcomes, decisions, handoffs and repair.
Next steps
Let's discuss this programme
Bring this to your team, or join a public cohort. Ashish personally reviews every enquiry.
Key outcomes
- Why strong teams can become collectively unreliable when local priorities, incentives and information are not integrated.
- The Cross-Team Friction Loop: local optimisation, boundary friction, delay and rework, defensive stories, lower trust and further local protection.
- The Value Coaching COHERE-6™ framework: Context, Outcomes, Human realities, Exchanges, Repair and Embed.
- How to define enterprise outcomes that guide trade-offs across customer, strategy, risk, technology, operations, governance and wellbeing.
- How identity, incentives, capacity, authority, expertise and risk exposure shape cross-functional behaviour under pressure.
- How to translate functional language and surface legitimate dissent before commitments are made.
How the day works and what's included
Methodology
- Concise evidence-informed inputs
- Systems mapping and boundary diagnosis
- Cross-Team Coherence Diagnostic
- Guided reflection and write-first participation
- Executive case discussion
- Facilitator demonstration
- Peer coaching
- Jargon translation laboratory
- Trade-off council
- Triad role play with observer feedback
- Decision and handoff design
- Project Koru capstone simulation
- Retrieval practice and feedback
- Real-work action planning
- Responsible AI-supported preparation with human judgement guardrails
Practice laboratories
- Cross-Team Coherence Diagnostic
- Boundary Heat Map
- Cross-Team Friction Loop root-cause map
- Context Map and Enterprise Outcome Sentence
- Pressure and Translation Canvas
- Jargon Translation Lab
- Trade-off Council
- Cross-Team Interface Contract™
- Shared Reality Conversation™ planner and role play
- Project Koru control-room simulation and role briefs
- Enterprise decision and governance log
- Observer scoring rubric
- 24-hour / 7-day / 30-day transfer plan
- 30-Day Interface Experiment
- Manager Discussion Guide and accountability-partner process
Tools & assessments
- A diagnostic or assessment is bundled into the programme
- Cross-Team Coherence Diagnostic before and after the learning experience
- COHERE-6™ gap score
- Outcome quality and decision-handoff checks
- Shared Reality Conversation™ observer rubric
- Project Koru simulation scoring rubric
- Knowledge and application retrieval quiz
- 30-day behavioural and operational evidence review
Reinforcement & transfer
- Pre-programme boundary reflection
- Real-work application throughout the day
- Participant workbook and retained canvases
- 24-hour boundary-conversation commitment
- Seven-day interface experiment
- 30-day implementation and evidence review
- Accountability-partner check-ins on Day 7 and Day 30
- Manager Discussion Guide
- Diagnostic re-score at 30 days
- Optional reinforcement clinic or group coaching by arrangement
- Map one material cross-team boundary and its enterprise consequence.
- Use COHERE-6™ to identify the weakest component before choosing an intervention.
- Replace one motive label with an observable pattern and a testable question.
- Translate one recurring functional term into shared, evidence-based language.
- Define an enterprise outcome before resolving a cross-functional trade-off.
- Use a Cross-Team Interface Contract™ for one critical decision or handoff.
- Conduct one Shared Reality Conversation™ within 24 hours.
- Run one seven-day interface experiment with a partner team.
- Review one behavioural signal and one operational signal after 30 days.
- Record legitimate dissent, assumptions and escalation thresholds in important decisions.
- Use AI only in approved environments for synthesis, translation or rehearsal; keep evidence, judgement and accountability human-owned.
Agenda at a glance
09:00–09:30 | Module 1 — Contract for Enterprise Learning
Set a candid and confidential working agreement, complete the Cross-Team Coherence Diagnostic, map value leakage and select one live boundary for application.
09:30–10:15 | Module 2 — Why Capable Teams Become Islands
Use the Cross-Team Friction Loop and a root-cause sort to distinguish goal, information, workflow, authority, identity and relationship conditions from blame-based symptoms.
10:15–10:30 | Morning Break
Informal cross-functional connection and reflection.
10:30–11:20 | Module 3 — Orient with Context and Outcomes
Map customer, strategy, technology, risk, governance, people and wellbeing consequences; define an enterprise outcome that can govern difficult trade-offs.
11:20–12:10 | Module 4 — Surface Human Realities and Translate Meaning
Apply a pressure scan, translate functional terms into observable consequences and practise distinguishing non-negotiables from preferences and fears.
12:10–13:00 | Lunch
Optional reflection on the cross-team reality most often missed from the participant’s role.
13:00–13:50 | Module 5 — Design Exchanges
Clarify decision ownership, contributors, evidence, acceptance criteria, timing, next signals and escalation through the Cross-Team Interface Contract™.
13:50–14:35 | Module 6 — Repair Friction
Practise the Shared Reality Conversation™ to address observable patterns, surface impact, inquire into reality and renew a testable commitment.
Who it's for
Executive and senior leadership teams, functional leaders, programme and transformation leaders, project and portfolio leaders, product and customer leaders, and intact cross-functional teams whose results depend on coordinated decisions across organisational boundaries.
- Executive and senior leaders responsible for enterprise-wide outcomes
- Functional leaders across Product, Technology, Operations, Customer, Finance, Risk, Legal, Data and People
- Programme, project, portfolio, transformation and change leaders
- Product, service, customer and operational leaders
- Managers working in matrixed, hybrid or distributed organisations
- Intact cross-functional teams preparing for a launch, transformation or operating-model shift
- Leaders in public, private, SME and non-profit organisations
Seniority: Mid managers, Senior leaders, Executive, Whole team, Mixed
Prerequisites: No formal prerequisite. Participants should bring one real cross-team boundary, decision, handoff or recurring friction pattern that matters to performance and is safe to discuss. Identifying or confidential details may be fictionalised.
Facilitator
Ashish Goyal
Ashish Goyal is an ICF-accredited executive coach, leadership trainer and transformation practitioner with more than 25 years of experience across banking, technology, government and global delivery. He combines commercial acumen, systems thinking, neuroscience-informed learning, organisational psychology and human-centred leadership to help leaders navigate complex stakeholder environments, strengthen influence and translate insight into durable workplace behaviour.
Taster workshop
Experience the same thinking in a shorter live session:
Next steps
Let's discuss this programme
Bring this to your team, or join a public cohort. Ashish personally reviews every enquiry.