How to help your cross-functional leadership teams work together, better

I see it all the time and you probably do too ...
Cross-functional teams who fall into a pattern of silos - each focusing on their own goals vs the bigger picture of how they can best work together as an integrated team.
This dynamic is a barrier to moving an organization’s goals from ideas that are “great on paper”, into action plans (that actually get executed, on time and on budget).
Here are some signs to identify if you have a cross-functional collaboration issue:
Conflict and frustrations are mounting: misunderstandings and turf wars arise between teams, slowing down progress or damaging relationships
Silos in problem-solving: teams focus on their own priorities without considering how their actions affect other departments or the larger strategy
Communication breakdown: information isn’t flowing between teams, leading to misunderstandings, delays, or duplicated efforts
Misaligned goals: teams aren’t aligned on what is truly most important, and departments work in isolation, pulling in different directions
So how do you solve for this?
Get crystal clear on what are truly the most important priorities
Leadership teams often have a large number of goals & objectives but without an explicit understanding of what takes priority. Without this clarity, leaders default to prioritizing the initiatives that fall under their department’s initiatives (or passion areas).
To get clear on the (truly) most important priorities is to help people step back from the lens of “me” and into the lens of “what is in service to the organization’s goals for this given planning period”?
Not everything can be done right now. Getting super clear on the truly most important priorities, allows a team to be more focused, and less reactive.
🎬 Leadership action - Identify a theme for each planning period that signals to your team what is most important in a given planning period. A theme may be “stability”, “doubling down on culture”, or “growth”. While the theme may feel broad, it can be a unifying force to remember what is most important, and what matters over other desired, but “not for now” initiatives.
Build understanding of “a day in the life” of each department
Empathy is one of the most powerful bridge-builders we have.
Once we start to “live a day” in someone else’s shoes, it becomes a whole lot harder to judge or criticize or not take their context into account. This perspective-taking helps teams get out of default patterns of unproductive conflict, and inspires them to tap into more generative approaches like brainstorming and creative problem-solving.
🎬 Leadership action - Set aside time in an upcoming department meeting to facilitate an information-exchange between departments or leaders. Ask participants to finish prompts such as: “the most challenging part of our job is”, “the most rewarding part of our job is”, “what keeps me up at night is”, “I really wish I could do X even better”. Nudging this dialogue will open the door to meaningful conversation and connection within your team.
Hone in on where the work gets “sticky”
Conflict in teams often comes down to the same issues occurring over and over again.
If we want to start solving this, we need to call out the elephant in the room and have some real conversation around it. What is the risk and cost of this conflict continuing? Are we prepared to do anything different? Presuming we do want to make a change, we must start with this critical step of simply calling out these big points of tension.
🎬 Leadership action - Map out your leadership team’s most important workflow and processes. Have everyone cast their vote on what is working well, and where things get sticky. Use this to bring important issues to the surface and engage your team in brainstorming and creative problem-solving.
Even the playing field with who gets access to information (and when)
Who gets access to information, and at what point is at the heart of much conflict and tension within organizations. Feeling “in the know” contributes to people feeling trusted and valued. Conversely, feeling that your peers are getting access to information and you are not, can lead to feeling that you aren’t as valued as a team member.
Leadership action - Reflect on your information-sharing channels. Do you have the right mechanisms (or meetings) in place to ensure that your leadership team are all getting important information at the same time? Be careful that you are not unintentionally eroding trust through giving different levels of access to information.
Commit to a regular cadence of alignment discussions
Team discussions often default to updates about work. They rarely focus on how people are working together. Yet it is precisely that how which enables the work to get done - either effectively and with a sense of ease and flow - or less effectively with bumps, conflict and tension.
Just like in any other relational system (family, partnership, etc), if we want optimal dynamics, we must continually come back to how we are relating to one another. This is not a one and done effort, this is a practice that must be continued (forever - sorry, not sorry).
🎬 Leadership action - Map out a series of meetings to talk about “how” you’re working together. Quality over quantity is important here (a facilitator and team coach can help). A recommended cadence for a cross-leadership team would be to meet quarterly on the how (and if you can’t swing that, at the very least annually).
I hope this was helpful.
One of my core specialties is Leadership & Team Alignment, bringing a unique skillset and approach of coaching, facilitation and leadership development. If your leadership team could use their own Team Coach, let’s talk!
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