In studies involving more than 2,000 global teams, one of us-Sujin-found that diverse teams containing a cultural broker significantly outperformed diverse teams without one. They usually have experiences and relationships that span multiple sectors, functions, or domains and informally serve as links between them. Develop and Deploy Cultural Brokersįortunately, in most companies there are people who already excel at interface collaboration. That means providing training in and support for four practices that enable effective interface work. Leaders need to help people develop the capacity to overcome these challenges on both individual and organizational levels. But simple does not mean easy human beings have always struggled to understand and relate to those who are different. The core challenges of operating effectively at interfaces are simple: learning about people on the other side and relating to them. We’ve found that people can be trained to see and connect with pools of expertise throughout their organizations and to work better with colleagues who think very differently from them. That’s why we’ve focused on identifying activities that facilitate boundary crossing. Worse, every new structure solves some problems but creates others. But that approach has limits: It’s costly, confusing, and slow. One way to break down silos is to redesign the formal organizational structure. It’s frustrating.” A senior partner in a leading consulting firm put it slightly differently: “You know you should swim farther to catch a bigger fish, but it is a lot easier to swim in your own pond and catch a bunch of small fish.” But most of us confine ourselves to the smaller projects that we can handle within our practice areas. “That’s where our greatest distinctive value is developed. We should focus on big projects that call for integration across practices,” a partner in a global accounting firm told us. Our research and consulting work with hundreds of executives and managers in dozens of organizations confirms both the need for and the challenge of horizontal collaboration. As innovation hinges more and more on interdisciplinary cooperation, digitalization transforms business at a breakneck pace, and globalization increasingly requires people to work across national borders, the demand for executives who can lead projects at interfaces keeps rising. Harvard’s Heidi Gardner has found that firms with more cross-boundary collaboration achieve greater customer loyalty and higher margins. Employees who can reach outside their silos to find colleagues with complementary expertise learn more, sell more, and gain skills faster. The value of horizontal teamwork is widely recognized. In short, the integrated solutions that most customers want-but companies wrestle with developing-require horizontal collaboration. Today the vast majority of innovation and business-development opportunities lie in the interfaces between functions, offices, or organizations. The response we get is almost always the same: vertical relationships.īut when we ask, “Which relationships are most important for creating value for customers?” the answers flip. We’ve posed that question to managers, engineers, salespeople, and consultants in companies around the world. Which relationships get prioritized in your day-to-day job? Now consider the people in other functions, units, or geographies whose work touches yours in some way. Think about your own relationships at work-the people you report to and those who report to you, for starters. That’s understandable: It is devilishly difficult. Though most executives recognize the importance of breaking down silos to help people collaborate across boundaries, they struggle to make it happen. And when that happens, interface collaboration will become second nature. What, then, is the solution? Engaging in four activities that promote horizontal teamwork: (1) developing cultural brokers, or employees who excel at connecting across divides (2) encouraging people to ask questions in an open-ended, unbiased way that genuinely explores others’ thinking (3) getting people to actively take other points of view and (4) broadening employees’ vision to include more-distant networks.īy supporting these activities, leaders can help employees connect with new pools of expertise and learn from and relate to people who think very differently from them. Employees naturally default to focusing on vertical relationships, and formal restructuring is costly, confusing, and slow. To realize them, companies must break down silos and get people working together across boundaries. Today the most promising innovation and business opportunities require collaboration among functions, offices, and organizations.
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