David vs Goliath — How to drive innovation inside a large organisation (part two)
The power of a cross-functional group of people
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships” — Michael Jordan
Most corporate innovation projects rely on the performance of cross-functional teams for their success. The team’s members — from areas as diverse as Product, Marketing, Sales, Engineering, HR, Legal and Cyber Security — need to work cohesively to deliver the optimal solution to the customer.
But is that always what happens?
When looking at the characteristics of successful innovators and disruptors, the first glaring and obvious point is that their people work as one.
Everyone is in sync… whether they’re ideating, experimenting, building, testing, deploying, marketing or selling their new product or service. They have common goals and they’re united in achieving them.
On the flip-side, consider the corporate environment. Many large surveys over the years have shown that the level of organisational understanding and collaboration is poor. For example, a longitudinal study conducted by Donald Sull at MIT Sloane School of Management found that 55% of middle managers can name only one of their company’s top five priorities[1].
That’s the corporate reality. In the case of an individual project, this lack of understanding can be magnified. That’s because many corporate projects are executed by ‘part-timers’… functional specialists who participate in the project, but, primarily, identify with their functional team, not the project.
This leads to a lack of understanding and commitment that chips away at cohesion within the project team, and allows:
1. Silos by function to develop
2. Objectives between functions to become misaligned
3. Different KPI’s per competency group to be set
4. Knowledge transfer between team members to be significantly deteriorated or hampered
5. A lack of trust or rapport with other team members to grow.
These symptoms invariably result in time delays, additional costs and sub-standard solutions. In other words, sub-optimal projects and stifled innovation that fails to meet the customer need.
Recommendations
Ensure that each member of a project team clearly understands (and signs onto) the project objectives, how they personally contribute and what they personally need to do.
Pay special attention to ensuring there is trust and a rapport between the team members.
Ideally, ensure that the cross-functional team starts the journey together so that they experience together the natural flow of exploring, winning, and repeating the process. This builds a bond and resilience that forms the foundation of a high-performing team.
Continue reading for part three here
[1] Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull, ‘Why Strategy Execution Unravels — and What to Do About It’, Harvard Business Review, March 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-strategy-execution-unravelsand-what-to-do-about-it
