Harnessing Advantages and Weaknesses for Multi-Departmental Inventive Growth
Unleashing Teamwork: Navigating the Minefield of Biases
In the fast-paced business landscape, leaders must drive innovation by spearheading collaboration across diverse departments - product development, marketing, customer success, and engineering. Yet, the uncertainty of this task is often met with self-preservation, resulting in siloed work and a lack of cross-functional collaboration.
What the world needs now is a platform where every unique brain intertwines, sharing its strengths – a space typified by collaboration rather than competition.
A Real-life Dilemma: The Siloed Symphony
I'm helping "Bob," a C-suite exec at a mid-sized tech firm, orchestrate cross-functional collaboration to bring their new product to market swiftly. The competition is stiff, and time is of the essence. However, despite numerous attempts, Bob's teams keep talking past each other.
Marketing is Inspiring, Product Dev is Innovative, Engineering is Precise, and Customer Service is Focused. Each department brings validity to their ideas, but they're all armed with biases, adding a puzzling layer to the brainstorming proceedings.
The Power of Self-Knowledge
Self-awareness is the linchpin to understanding one's unique strengths, weaknesses, and yes, biases. This priceless skill allows individuals to step back, observe their thought patterns, and recognize the filters shaping their thinking.
Think of it this way: All of us are guiding our shopping carts through the aisles, each with its slight tilt. The tilt is a blend of our strengths, experiences, and biases. If my cart tilts right, I'll find it simpler to go right and more challenging to turn left. The key is recognizing that no shopping cart is perfectly balanced, but once we're aware of the direction our cart, and others, are leaning, we can navigate without head-on collisions.
The 6-Step Strategy for Leaders
As a leader, here are the steps you can take to foster an environment of collaboration:
1. Embrace Daily Reflection
Minute actions, such as end-of-day reflection, can help us develop self-awareness, and research suggests that it's effective[1]. Over an eight-week period, this practice, combined with bias awareness training, reduced implicit bias scores by 10%-15%[2].
2. Begin Meetings with a Bias Check
Start every brainstorming session by inviting everyone to share a quick reflection on their recent experiences and how they might shape their ideas about the topic at hand. This exercise encourages self-awareness and has been shown to boost creative problem-solving[3].
3. Define Success Together
Cross-functional collaboration often falters because teams pursue different versions of success. Collaboration thrives when the goals are shared and understood. Each team should define what success would look like for them, considering not only outcomes but also the behaviors and actions needed to attain it.
4. Establish Nonnegotiables
Require each team to lay out its nonnegotiables, the bare minimum needed for the project to succeed. This list helps cross-functional teams see if their proposed solution will work for everyone, preventing ideas that don't meet a team's criteria.
5. Rotate Facilitation
By allowing different team members to lead meetings, you prevent a single voice from monopolizing the conversation. This approach is essential because it exposes the group to various leadership styles and minimizes bias.
6. Model Bias-Checking
As a leader, it's crucial to share your biases because it fosters openness among the team. By saying, "I tend to favor this approach due to my background," you're creating a safe space for others to do the same.
Wrapping Up
Cross-functional collaboration is possible only when individuals and teams embrace their biases and recognize their distinct strengths. A culture of open dialogue is an essential mission for leaders, crucial for fostering collaboration that transcends traditional boundaries.
As a valued member of the Forbes Coaches Council, you play a pivotal role in guiding leaders to success. Do I qualify?
Shivani Bhasin, a Forbes Coaches Council member, emphasizes the importance of breaking down silos in cross-functional collaboration. To thrive in this collaborative environment, leaders must prioritize fostering a culture of self-awareness, which helps identify biases and transcend traditional boundaries. Shivani suggests defining success together, establishing nonnegotiables, rotating meeting facilitation, and modeling bias-checking as crucial steps toward achieving this goal. Ultimately, it's the leader's role to model open dialogue and create a safe space for team members to share their biases and distinct strengths, ultimately leading to less crashing and increased efficiency in navigating the complex landscape of cross-functional collaboration.
