Where data, budget, and people are split across departments, a well-placed broker becomes the person who connects them, and routing through the broker becomes the fastest way to get anything done.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
As chief of staff to the chief executive of a cosmetics company, he had no formal authority over IT, the regional marketing budgets, or supply chain engineering, and he knew the heads of all three. When the skincare general manager had spent four months trying to assemble customer data, a marketing budget, and packaging engineers for a refill subscription, he offered to help. One meeting with the three department heads, with the chief executive's priority list on the table, produced the budget and two engineers within a week. Two other brand heads asked him for the same help that quarter. When the skincare general manager proposed a permanent subscriptions team with its own budget, he backed the proposal at the executive committee and offered to run the transition, which left him chairing the steering group for the new team.
Why it works
Fragmentation makes direct coordination expensive: each department head has their own priorities, so assembling the full bundle costs political capital with several counterparts and long delays. Partial wins are stranded, which lowers the value of the lateral route. Going through someone who knows every party and carries a senior mandate becomes the easy path, since one conversation can align them. The broker's position depends on knowing people who do not otherwise know each other well, on standing strong enough that sponsors do not go over their head, and on delivering when asked.
The thinking behind it
Mark Granovetter Granovetter's The Strength of Weak Ties (1973) shows that acquaintances who connect otherwise separate groups act as bridges, carrying information and ideas across a network more than close ties do. A broker who knows the heads of IT, marketing, and supply chain is that bridge in a fragmented company. The bridge is valuable because the groups are not otherwise connected, which is why consolidation threatens the broker's position and why backing it keeps them a role in the new structure.
Jeffrey Pfeffer Pfeffer's Power in Organizations (1981) treats centrality in networks of dependence as a main source of power. When every cross-functional initiative needs one person to assemble its resources, that person is central, whatever the org chart says. Sponsors who map the dependence and propose integrator roles or consolidated ownership reduce it, which is the structural answer Pfeffer's account suggests to the people who depend on a broker.
When it fits
People in connecting roles, such as chiefs of staff, program officers, or long-tenured operators, who know the heads of several departments that rarely talk to each other, are the users. You need a mandate senior enough to carry weight, and a willingness to be measured by what gets done through you.
How to use it well
Map who owns what, and who does not talk to whom.
- Offer help on concrete, high-priority initiatives, where unblocking them is visible.
- Bring the owners together in one meeting with the priority on the table, in place of shuttling between them.
- Credit the departments that delivered, and tell each one what you agreed on their behalf.
- Support consolidation where the company needs it, and take a role in it.
A broker who backs integration keeps a central role in the new structure. One who resists it ends up defending a bottleneck.
What it costs and where it backfires
Being the one who unblocks things concentrates requests on you, and your capacity becomes the limit. Department heads may resent being overridden through you, and an executive who sees you as a bottleneck will design you out. The line comes when keeping the role means slowing requests that do not come through you, or blocking a consolidation the company needs: that obstructs the company's own work, and it will be read as sabotage.
When it is used on you
Dependent on a broker, map which resources only they can pull together, record the cost of coordinating directly, and join with other sponsors to propose a structural fix such as an integrator role or consolidated ownership. Going after the broker alone leaves the structure in place.