Introducing the GR-X Team
Your conventional GR team
Most GR teams — most corporate functions teams, in fact — are organized along a geographical coverage model. Career paths usually lead from responsibility for one country to leading a global region and finally the global team. Such a geographical organization has some advantages — responsibilities are easy to determine, and it often allows an alignment with sales priorities.
However, there are a couple of obvious drawbacks. The most important one: The “regional cup” will always be full. If you cover France, you will surely find enough projects to keep you busy. But what are the opportunity costs? Might have been smarter to spend 30% of your resources in neighboring Belgium. Furthermore, collaboration within the GR team becomes an afterthought. National political systems are very specific — why bother working with your colleague if the stuff doesn’t scale? You basically create an organization of solitaires.
There are some fixes for these challenges, e.g. establish a global GR program alongside the regional GR organization (but don’t call it “Center of Excellence”, as one big IT company has done it recently — it somehow implies that the regional GR team is a “Center of Mediocrity”. Not particularly motivating). However, this fix can only get you so far. I have doubts that GR teams organized along these lines will excel. The main reason lies deeper than reporting lines: It is about the corporate culture that comes with a regional coverage model. Clear demarkation lines of responsibilities prevent collaboration, flexibility and agility. It petrifies an organization. In a world on fire, you cannot afford a GR team operating along such lines.
People over Process: Introducing the GR X-Team
It strikes me that teams who constantly have to perform on the highest level have less clear demarkation lines of responsibilities. A soccer coach constantly changes the formation, depending on circumstances and the opponent. The same is true for special forces in the army. Most importantly, you don’t build a highly performing team by promising everyone a specific role that will never change. Instead, you establish a mindset of flexibility: Roles and jobs can change quickly — and you might find yourself on the bench for two or three games — but that’s OK, because it is part of the job description. I recently came across a wonderful list of football players who were already damn good, but achieved their highest level only after their coaches put them on a different position. Schweinsteiger started as a winger, became a legendary central midfielder; Pirlo was a really good attacking midfielder, but became untouchable as a defensive midfielder.
What does that mean for a GR team? I could imagine hiring a GR team with no emphasis on regional coverage. Instead, you hire a bunch of highly capable individuals who have the mindset and capabilities to jump on any topic anytime anywhere — be it a specific policy issue in one country or a project with another global function or product development. Most importantly, you hire them with the promise that “overstepping” cannot happen: There are no fixed boundaries in this team.
Here you go: Your GR X-Team is ready to rumble!
But but but…
A GR X-team model raises a couple of questions, of course:
- Depth of expertise and networks: If everyone is constantly on the move — does this prevent the team from building deeper ties with political stakeholders and a deeper understanding of policy issues? Maybe — but it’s not necessarily a problem. Except for very technical regulatory issues, most policy topics are actually not that complicated. A skilled GR manager could deal with them on short notice. It would certainly help if your company would have (1) a separate technical regulation and compliance team (which is a good idea anyhow) and (2) an external sourcing of public policy monitoring (your classical public affairs agency).
- Responsibility management: Does such a flexible model lead to a big accountability mess? Not necessarily. As long as projects are clearly defined (RACI model, clear definition of success), I see no real accountability problem. In fact, such an agile model would enforce a stricter framing of engagements as projects rather than trodding down the path.
- Hiring patterns: How do you hire for a GR X-Team? As written elsewhere, I believe that GR teams are “weak link organizations” — means: A couple of superstars don’t help you to succeed if the rest of the team is not up for the game. Consistency in hiring with a strong focus on mindset and analytical skills are key. Hiring a diverse team is as important — it would provide a variety of native knowledge about political systems around the globe.
Keen to hear your thoughts on a GR-X Team!
