Creating Cross-Functional Teams to Boost Efficiency

Business challenges and complexities need to be addressed with a diverse set of skills, competencies, styles and perspectives. Companies, to address such challenges faster and more innovatively, are increasingly resorting to the team structure of work style. In a knowledge intensive atmosphere, teams are becoming the norm. Knowledge creation and sharing happen best when people interact with each other within groups and teams, and work together to achieve a common goal.

What is a cross-functional team?

The name is quite indicative enough; a cross-functional team draws people from different functional groups within the organization – Research & Development, Marketing, Finance, Engineering & Design etc. – who work together as a team towards identified objectives, with the overall motive to foster innovation and enhance working relationships within different functional divisions.

Why Cross-functional teams?

Cross-functional teams help individuals to gain a more comprehensive insight into the company. It promotes a system of thinking among members whereby people gain an understanding about the role and interdependencies of various functionalities.

It also helps people to enhance their own skill sets and exposes members to the needs and processes of other functional divisions. A team of people with diverse knowledge and skill sets is often the birthplace of innovative ideas and solutions to complex problems.

How to go about forming a cross functional team?

1. Whereto is the ship heading? There must be a charter, a clear direction or a purpose. Why are you forming a team at the first place? If that basic question goes unanswered, you will end up having good people on board spending long time in meetings, ending up becoming frustrated; eventually they will stop participating and the team just fizzles out. The destination if clear, every other thing would fall into place with due attention, over time. Without defined objectives, we cannot focus the energy and the attention of the members of the team.

    

2. Get the right crew: The success of the team is very much dependant on the kind of members that comprise the team. Dr. Merdith Belbin, in his research paper, had identified some common team roles that may serve as insightful guidelines when selecting the kind of people you would like to have in your team. Of course, it is very much possible for one person to play more than one of those roles. The common roles are:
   1. Leader: He is the one who explores everyone's potential, sets goals for the team to reach, monitors performance and takes the responsibility of the team's overall progress and performance. He is the captain steering the ship towards the lands, sometime through calm seas and sometime through the raging storms.
   2. Challenger: He is the one who may often come up with strong contrarian views, challenging the basic assumptions, beliefs and the norms that characterize the team. He challenges others to think differently and may often drive innovative ideas.
   3. Expert: He's the one who can have an objective view and look at things from a specialist's viewpoint, advising on the feasibility of a project or an idea.
   4. Ambassador: He champions the cause of the team. He builds rapport with the external environment, and sells the team's ideas.
   5. Judge: The practical man who listens and evaluates ideas objectively, seeking truth and helping the team arrive at the best way to go about executing ideas.
   6. Innovator: The source of innovation and creativity, this ideator has the ability to deal with complex issues.
   7. Diplomat: A great negotiator, this man guides the team to successful outcomes by building consensus and building alliances with influential people within and outside the team.
   8. Conformer: A helpful and resourceful man who does not challenge decisions but works best for successful implementation of decisions
   9. Outputter: Self-motivated person, focused on achieving results.
   10. Mediator: Works on team relationships and conflict resolution; keeps the team motivation and morale high.
   11. Quality controller: Drives performance towards goals and checks if the desired results are being achieved, conforming to high standards of quality.
   12. Reviewer: Monitors performance and provides feedback.

    

   In essence, it is important for the team to satisfy basic three criteria:

   1. Does the team have the relevant expertise to deal with the problems?
   2. Do some of the team members have the authority to get the team decisions implemented?
   3. Can they overall gel well with each other?

    

3. Establish norms of the group: Individual beliefs, attitudes and desires may drive different kind of behaviors from different people. It is therefore important to have norms established so that individual behaviors confirm to the overall objective of the group. If individuals with drastically negative attitudes are not corrected, it may work to the detriment of the group. It thus implies that every member should affiliate himself with the group and its goals.

    

   Frequent honest feedback sessions, more cohesive team atmosphere based on open communication, mutual respect amongst members and a culture of sharing information and resources are imperatives for aligning individual behavior to overall group objectives.

    

4. Clarify milestones and measures: It is important to decide targets and measurable ways to achieve and monitor results. Drawing a road map with identified milestones is the secret of successful teams.

    

5. Delegate: Appropriate jobs should be allocated to the appropriate person based on his skill and potential and should be given the width to take decisions for areas for which he is responsible. It is imperative to be clear about the tasks and the deliverables. While it is important to delegate, it is equally important that you adequately supervise. No interference at all runs the risk of the team member heading towards unwanted direction, and over-interference may de-motivate.

    

6. Deal with conflicts: Conflicts are double-edged swords. They can be the source of unconventional thinking and also for the break up of the team. While productive and healthy conflicts if managed well can exponentially improve the team's ability to deliver results better than expected, it is essential to check them when they show signs of affecting the team cohesiveness.

Conclusion

While cross-functional teams are considered to be the hub of innovative ideas that can change dramatically the way a company addresses its problems, it is imperative that the overall ambience of the organization supports such a cross-functional framework. It is not about the individual teams but the overall organization that needs to be re-looked at.

Does the management lend its support to such a framework? Does the company recruit only specialists or also generalists? Is there any job rotation system followed to foster diversity in experience? How are people promoted – within a narrow job classification?

For cross-functional teams to perform better, there should be a culture that realizes the value of such a framework. It is important for the management to express its commitment towards such a style of work Does management invest in team building efforts and training sessions to help the team members to perform better together? Does management reward team performance or is the reward system too heavily dependent on individual performance? Does the management commit adequate resources to the teams?

With active support from the management, properly built teams characterized by diversity, can be the ideal answer to the dynamic problems of the ever-changing business panorama.