Many cross-functional teams still fail even though they have shared objectives or clarity of roles and responsibilities. Tragically, several of these teams will continue to work in a system that tears team members apart.
The system, in this case, is formed by three factors: performance evaluation, rewards and clarity of who the customer is. When the performance of team members is evaluated by different people, or incentives are not aligned, or there is confusion about who is the customer, you can expect sub-optimal results.
Remarkably, however, when I engage with the members of cross-functional teams, too often everyone acknowledges the dysfunctional system – yet they continue to make decisions as if the defect does not exist.
In your next cross-functional meeting ask these three questions:
- Who evaluates the performance of each team member?
- Who or what determines the bonus or reward of each team member?
- Who are we attempting to delight?
Logically, the answers to these questions correlates to the degree these same employees will be aligned in their decision making and actions.
Not so logical is why too often team members ignore these variables or pretend the system does not influence daily decision making.
Aligned systems are as important as like-minded team members.
