How to Launch a Cross-Functional Team
“We’ve had the same meeting three times,” Tammy, a coaching client, complained about a cross-functional team she was placed on. “Each time, I think we have a plan of action. We leave the meeting, nobody does anything, and we meet next week to discuss it all over again. It’s exhausting.”
Tammy could see a better way; she’d even be willing to volunteer as the team’s project manager to ensure that progress was made. But would her colleagues think she was overstepping if she offered her leadership?
I hear these kinds of challenges all the time as a coach—about both work teams and teams people serve on in the community. I also hear the following related challenges—any of them sound familiar?
Who is supposed to be in charge of this team?
Why do some people come prepared to meetings, and others don’t?
What are we supposed to do when the team doesn’t agree on a course of action?
Why am I on this team? I’m not sure how I’m supposed to contribute.
This is wasting my time and nothing is getting done.
In the last newsletter, I offered three questions to help you evaluate how your team is doing. Let’s say you discovered your team needs some help. You’re asking some—or all—of the questions above and you’re secretly wondering if you could quiet vacation your way out of the next meeting. What now?
How to design a team
When you notice challenges like these, or when you launch a new project team or add a new colleague to an existing team, it’s an opportunity to shape the team’s purpose and structure. A failure to do so can leave capable and well-meaning colleagues feeling exhausted and annoyed, as Tammy did.
Designing the team requires answering, in detail, a few essential questions.
WHO is on the team and what do they contribute? Great teams are usually between 6 and 8 people: small enough everyone has to participate, but big enough to allow for a diversity of expertise.
It’s also essential that each member of the team knows how they are expected to contribute. Imagine you decide to put a high-potential young team member onto a project team. They feel intimidated so they keep their mouth shut during meetings. But you were hoping they’d be the voice of their division, or that they’d bring the insights of a digital native into the conversation. If you’d told the group why they were there—what their area of expertise was in this group—they might have felt more freedom to speak up.
WHAT is the role design? Who is leading the meetings? Setting the agenda? Taking notes? Is there someone who is playing a project management role? Who is reporting the progress to the executive team? Design this rather than assuming it will happen.
WHAT are our expectations of each other? A brief conversation about how the team will interact is essential to establish group norms. Tammy’s team would have benefited from agreeing on the expectation that meetings are for discussion, not information sharing; therefore people need to come to meetings with pre-work done.
WHY does our team exist? Perhaps this seems obvious, but I assure you it is not always. For example, your team might think it’s been assembled to develop new sales pipelines. That’s clear, but is it the full story? What is the expected ROI? Is this team also about building bridges between sales and account management? Get clear.
WHEN is our deadline? If your project has a firm deadline, borrow Stephen Covey’s advice and begin with the end in mind.
HOW are decisions going to be made? Finally, don’t get started on the task at hand until you know how decisions are to be made. Is your team meant to form recommendations that will be kicked to an executive for a decision? Are you to reach a consensus or take votes? Will decisions be made differently in different stages? (For example, giving final decisions regarding marketing to the marketing team, while engineering retains decision-making during the design stage?)
Fixing Tammy’s team
Tammy’s team had no role division and had not set expectations of each other. With no clear leadership and differences of objectives across team members, no one felt empowered to speak up. No wonder they were wandering aimlessly.
Is your team struggling? It might be that your team needs a clearer design than has developed organically. Don’t feel bad about that—but if no one else is stepping up to fix it, it may be your job. Tammy found that was the case. She came to the next team meeting with questions and recommendations that made the team experience less annoying and exhausting, and more productive.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/business-meeting-5686105/
