Most of us have seen firsthand the negative impacts that organizational silos can have. Silos tend to creep up naturally as companies scale. Departments and teams form their own cultures, processes, and goals. Without vigilant leadership, communication and collaboration breaks down.
The symptoms become all too familiar – unnecessary overlap in work, lack of unity in strategy implementation, territorial behaviors, and in the worst cases, toxic office politics. Silos lead to inefficiency, stifle innovation, and can severely hamper employee engagement and retention.
A 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that dysfunctional silos lead to significant deterioration of performance over time. Employees who view their company as operating in silos are less engaged, less likely to collaborate, and show lower levels of anticipation for change. Combined, these factors result in lower productivity, poorer service delivery, and barriers to growth.
So how do we overcome these silos? It’s a multi-pronged effort requiring improved top-down communication, investments in cross-departmental training and development, and leveraging digital collaboration tools like Slack. It also goes without saying that having clear goals for the entire business with a business plan and set of OKRs that cascade down into each department is a baseline requirement. See other AO posts describing building and managing this plan: 6 Steps to Annual Business Planning and Managing a 12-Month Business Planning Calendar.
While all important, one of the most impactful practices I’ve implemented is forming cross-functional team initiatives.
What is a Cross-Functional Team?
A cross-functional team (CFT) is exactly what it sounds like – a group composed of members from different functional areas like engineering, marketing, sales, operations, etc. They come together around a shared goal, initiative, or problem outside the boundaries of any single department.
Some recent CFT efforts at our company have included improving our account expansion motion, revamping our customer onboarding processes, and developing a go-to-market strategy for a major new product release. The key benefit of these cross-functional collaborations is that they look at challenges holistically and develop solutions more aligned with overarching business objectives.
So, how do you properly initiate and manage effective cross-functional teams? Here are some of the key practices I’ve learned:
Cross-Functional Team Formation
- Start with clear intent – There needs to be a well-defined purpose, scope, and set of objectives that align with broader company priorities. The “why” must be clear.
- Handpick members – Don’t default to role titles. Identify specific people with relevant expertise, stakeholder perspectives, leadership capabilities, and — most importantly — demonstrated willingness to collaborate. CFTs thrive on diversity of thought.
- Appoint leadership – Designate a team lead with advanced facilitation and stakeholder management skills to drive direction, resolve conflicts, and remove roadblocks. This leader doesn’t necessarily need to come from the most “senior” role.
- Define parameters – Establish expectations around working norms like meeting cadence, communication methods, documentation sharing, etc., to create structure without being overly prescriptive.
- Get executive support – Secure vocal sponsorship from senior leadership and key stakeholders to empower the team and ensure their outputs have weight.
Cross-Functional Team Management
- Provide shared context – Align the team with background information, business drivers, dependencies, and challenges. Shared knowledge breeds cohesion.
- Focus on process – Effective CFTs develop collaborative workflows, decision-making frameworks, and rituals to suit their unique needs and blend leadership styles.
- Track progress & output – Create workstreams with clearly defined goals, owners, dependencies, and ways to measure progress. Capture insights and outputs centrally.
- Over-communicate – To maintain organizational buy-in, keep key stakeholders informed of progress, blockers, evolving perspectives, and dependencies.
- Encourage productive conflict – Respectful disagreement is healthy when focused on ideas, not individuals. Conflict often reveals blindspots and ignites creative problem-solving.
- Recognize wins – Celebrate milestones and publicly recognize victories along the journey. Little things go a long way.
- Formalize adoption – At the conclusion, the team should formalize workstream documentation and transition processes to be owned by standing teams. Consider rotational handoffs if needed.
Dependencies and Risks
Of course, there are risks and dependencies to CFT initiatives that can’t be ignored. The two biggest are:
Lack of Alignment and Prioritization – CFTs can lose focus, momentum, or accountability when shared objectives and priorities aren’t clear from the start. Properly scoping the goals and getting leadership support is crucial.
Employee Burnout – CFTs bring extra workload and responsibilities, especially for key individual contributors tapped to lead or contribute to multiple initiatives. Setting expectations with managers and protecting bandwidth is critical.
With cross-functional collaborations, the goal is not to eliminate departments and silos entirely but rather to puncture them periodically with productive teamwork focused on shared goals. Doing so reaps tremendous benefits in employee morale, process efficiencies, and the ability to innovate products and services continually.
Actionable Insights:
To mitigate organizational silos through cross-functional team implementation:
- Choose initiatives with clear purpose and alignment to company priorities
- Handpick members with diverse expertise, perspectives and collaborative mindsets
- Empower team leadership with facilitation capabilities and sponsorship
- Develop shared contexts, collaborative processes, and workstream goals
- Maintain over-communication and stakeholder engagement
- Recognize wins to reinforce behaviors and maintain momentum
- Formalize outputs and processes into standing operations
- Manage risks of misalignment and individual burnout
With vigilant execution, cross-functional team initiatives can break down silos, enhance employee engagement, improve operational efficiency, and drive transformational innovation.
References:
- Harvard Business Review – “Making Silos Work in Your Organization” – 2021
- Gallup – “Too Many Teams, Too Many Bosses: Overcoming Matrix Madness” – 2021
- Asana – “Building a cross-functional team in 2022: 9 tips and benefits” – 2022
- Founding Minds – “Breaking Down Silos: The Benefits of Cross-Functional Teams” – 2023