Effective cross functional collaboration can be the key to tackling an organization’s toughest problems. Cross functional teams can serve as pockets of innovation, and they can improve both individual and group performance. There’s very little question about their value.

The question is, why are cross functional teams so difficult to manage and maintain? Understanding some of the challenges faced by cross functional teams is the first step in making them work.

Before I start this post on how to keep a workforce that has suddenly moved to a remote model due to the coronavirus engaged and motivated, I want to begin by acknowledging those workers who can't do their job from home.

Without the hospital staff, grocery store workers, pharmacists, first responders, delivery drivers, utility workers, assisted living employees, and countless others in our communities, this situation would be even worse than it is.

We see you. We thank you.

Many business leaders see cross functional collaboration as the key to innovation and optimal business performance. Almost everyone agrees that it's good to have more cross functional collaboration, but not every business has devoted the effort to creating conditions that are likely to result in more of it. If you find yourself in this position, here are a few simple strategies that can help set the stage for a more cohesive relationship between various parts of the organization.

Involve Influencers

In most organizations, there are a number of individuals who are natural connectors. To borrow a word from junior high, these employees are “popular.” They are the perfect individuals to involve in your cross functional collaboration efforts because it likely comes naturally to them, and because where they go, others will follow. If you are creating a cross-functional team to solve a particular problem, for example, be sure to include one or more influencers.

Last year, research by the Harvard Business Review found that 75% of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional, meaning that “They fail on at least three of five criteria: 1) meeting a planned budget; 2) staying on schedule; 3) adhering to specifications; 4) meeting customer expectations; and/or 5) maintaining alignment with the company’s corporate goals." Yikes.

According to the researchers, “Cross-functional teams often fail because the organization lacks a systemic approach. Teams are hurt by unclear governance, by a lack of accountability, by goals that lack specificity, and by organizations’ failure to prioritize the success of cross-functional projects.”

With a smart approach to cross-functional collaboration and some attention to the details, your cross-functional team does not have to be doomed. Try these tips to avoid the fate that so many have suffered.

In most organizations, the most challenging problems are those that span multiple teams, departments, or divisions. For example, many companies struggle to create a seamless customer onboarding experience, or a quote to ship process, without any hiccups. Why are these goals so difficult? Largely because no single group can make them happen alone.

Cross functional collaboration is difficult partly due to communications barriers, different working styles and workflows, and different tools used by each group. Software designed to remove these obstacles and grease the skids of cooperation provides significant help.

When it comes to improvement, cross functional team collaboration is especially important. Getting people from across your organization working together to solve problems that plague them all ensures that you take diverse approaches and achieve the best solutions.

Here are a few of the features you should look for if you want to remove the silos and get your teams working as one.

The top reason organizations turn to cross functional teams is for the purpose of addressing a challenge that crosses departmental boundaries. That’s a pretty obvious reason to use the approach, but it is far from the only one. Here are 10 more.

A flat organizational structure with few or no levels of middle management can be extremely conducive to innovation and improvement. Well-trained, engaged workers can be more creative and collaborative when they are more directly involved in the decision making process and not separated from leadership by layers of management. However, without good planning and accountability practices, ambiguity about who is responsible for what can become problematic and allow improvement tasks to fall through the cracks. Catchball can help.

When I was 22 and just starting my career, I was the administrative assistant to the President of a software company. One of my responsibilities was to take the notes in the weekly executive meeting. I wasn’t expected to participate in the meeting, just to document the discussion. At one point we hired a new CIO. He was a distinguished technology executive with many years’ experience. He was also European and intimidating as heck.

I go to the farmer’s market every weekend. I'm always in awe of the beauty and variety of the harvest the farmers produce. The fresh fruits and vegetables are so colorful and fragrant, I really enjoy just walking around and having a look. Their variety and success is amazing, but not accidental. This produce didn’t just grow randomly. Each farmer decided what he or she wanted to grow. They found the proper place to plant each seed, and carefully nurtured the plants until the food was ripe. 

We’ve probably all gone to conferences that have the same, relatively stale format. Most often, a series of speakers gets up on stage for hour-long blocks of time. Even if the speaker is engaging and effective, it’s essentially one-way communication that leads to passive listeners. Some of the lean back listening time gets interrupted with a few audience questions.

This dynamic usually means a missed opportunity when you’ve created and gathered a community of people who are all working on the same things. Conference goers have a lot to share and learn from each other in more interactive ways.

That’s why something called “Open Space Technology” (OST), or more commonly just Open Space, is a great way to shake up a conference or replace the traditional conference all together.

Wikipedia defines OST as a: