What does it actually look like when you stop managing departments and start aligning players to a North Star? Let’s look at a generic example of a possible bottleneck in a financial institution: the mortgage onboarding process.
The current state (the “siloed struggle”)
A client comes into a branch for a mortgage and meets with a generalist advisor. The advisor can take the application, but has limited depth of mortgage experience. The conversation focuses on completing the form, with less exploration of the client’s circumstances or whether options involving an RRSP or a first home savings account warrant a discussion with an appropriately qualified specialist.
The application then goes to underwriting. As the underwriter reviews the file, they identify information and supporting documents needed to assess the request that were not collected at the outset. They send those questions back to the generalist advisor, who goes back to the client. The answers return through the advisor to underwriting, sometimes prompting another round of questions.
The client experiences this as repeated requests and delays. The advisor acts as the intermediary, while underwriting spends time clarifying and completing the file. The gap in mortgage expertise at the first conversation creates extra work for everyone and can leave opportunities for useful advice unexplored.
Once underwriting has completed its assessment, the application moves to someone else for approval. The client then returns to review and sign documents and complete the remaining requirements. After that, a separate funding team takes over to arrange the release of funds.
Each stage has a purpose, but the work passes through several groups without a coordinated view of the client’s journey. Missing information, repeated conversations, and separate handoffs make the process harder to navigate. The issue is how expertise, information, and responsibility connect from the initial advice through to funding.
We sit down and ask the Big Whys:
How could we bring deeper mortgage expertise into the first client conversation, so the client receives useful advice and the application is more complete?
How could the advisor and underwriter resolve questions together with fewer rounds of messages through the client?
How could approval, signing, and funding be coordinated as one client journey while preserving the required decision-making and controls?
The future state (the operating model)
We redesign the process around capabilities, not buildings.
Specialist Pods: We bring together a mortgage specialist, an underwriter, a funding specialist, and a lending administrator in a “Lending Excellence Pod” assigned to a defined territory. The same people work together across the mortgage deals in that territory, building a shared understanding of each file from the initial conversation through to funding.
Reporting and Responsibilities: Pod members work together regardless of their reporting lines. They can retain separate functional managers, professional support, and decision-making responsibilities. Clear approval authorities and segregation of duties remain in place, with the arrangement reviewed against the institution’s policies and applicable regulatory requirements. The pod coordinates the work while preserving the independence of required reviews and approvals.
The North Star: Their primary measure is time to a lending decision, considered alongside credit quality, fair treatment, and compliance. They also follow each file through signing and funding, coordinating handoffs and resolving questions within their delegated authority.
The Tech: Instead of IT “owning” the software, the Lending Pod owns the mastery of it. They identify the bugs and work directly with a BA to improve the workflow.
Illustrative outcomes
Efficiency: Suppose time to a lending decision falls by 40%. This is an illustrative figure, not a measured result.
Empowerment: Clear ownership and support may improve the team’s experience; staff feedback and retention data would test that expectation.
Quality: specialists have more time to review applications. Track errors and lending outcomes separately; faster decisions alone do not establish better credit quality.
Transformation doesn’t require hiring 50 new people; it requires lining up the players differently. We stop looking at the “Branch” as a building and start looking at “Lending” as a capability. By removing departmental walls, you allow the “Nervous System” (Project/Process Delivery) to actually reach the limbs.
Putting that structure into practice also means changing familiar ways of working.
Innovation requires risk and the courage to accept when something doesn’t work. Often, organizations don’t evolve because of resistance on the ground. People like what they know. They do things because “everyone else does it that way.”
However, people will move if they have a compelling North Star vision. If your company is struggling to evolve, consider a strategy that gives your people explicit permission to break down barriers and stand up cross-functional teams.
In my experience, when someone has an idea like the case study above, many companies force them to “sell” it internally. I call it “pushing the truck up the hill.” You end up stumbling over egos, territories, and deep-seated attachments to the status quo.
Stop pushing the truck. Start aligning the capabilities.