Getting collaboration right promises tremendous benefits: a unified face to customers, faster internal decision-making, reduced costs through shared resources and the development of more innovative products. But despite the billions of dollars spent on initiatives to improve collaboration, few companies are happy with the results. Join us to uncover common myths about collaboration and learn how to encourage and develop real collaboration within your organization so that people drive business results across internal and geographic boundaries.
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
Identify if their organizations are falling prey to common myths of collaboration. Implement strategies that will transform differences and disagreement from a liability to an asset, so that conflict becomes the crucible in which creative solutions are developed and wise trade-offs among competing objectives are made.
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Transcript
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Matrix Corporation is the world's top provider of products and services. Among the leaders in almost every market in which it competes, the company focuses primarily on its growing services business, which accounts for well over half of sales.
How can we serve complex accounts that require seamless internal collaboration?
For any given sale, four or more lead salespeople and their teams have to agree on issues of resource allocation, solution design, pricing and sales strategy
Breakdowns occur not on actual teams but in the rapid and unstructured interactions between different groups within the organizations
Breakdowns almost always result from fundamental differences among business functions and divisions. Teamwork training offers little guidance on how to work together in the context of competing objectives and limited resources
People who need to collaborate more effectively typically don’t need to align around a common goal. They need to quickly and creatively solve problems by managing inevitable conflict
Sales people will receive bonuses not only for hitting targets for their own division’s products but also for hitting cross-selling targets
Staff in corporate functions like IT and procurement will have part of their bonuses determined by their ability to get positive feedback from their internal clients
So teamwork training didn’t get the results Matrix hoped for…
You can’t improve collaboration if your goal is to eliminate conflict
Recognize that efforts to increase collaboration (especially in the case of restructuring) will mostly likely produce conflict
Conflict is inevitable and important Disagreements sparked by different perspectives, competencies,
access to information, and strategic focus within the company actually generates much of the value that can come from collaboration across organizational boundaries
Clashes between parties are the crucibles in which creative solutions are developed and wise trade-offs among competing objectives are made
Instead of trying to simply to reduce disagreements, Matrix Senior Executives have decided to embrace conflict, and institutionalize the mechanisms for managing it
Establish a companywide process for resolving disagreements Reduce transaction costs (wasted time, accumulation of ill will) Increase chances of innovative outcomes
Clear step-by-step process
Integral part of existing business activities
Strategy 1: Devise and implement a common method for resolving conflict
At Matrix, employees learned the best thing to do with cross-unit conflict was to toss it up the management chain
Managers at Matrix spend much of their time playing the organizational equivalent of hot potato
They take a quick pass at resolving the issue, but being busy themselves, they typically toss the problem upstairs
Senior managers are a number of steps removed from the source of the controversy and rarely have a good understanding of the problem…and subordinates have little opportunity to learn how to deal with conflict
Strategy 3: Use escalation of conflict as an opportunity for coaching
One tool on the corporate intranet walks managers through a variety of conversations they might have with a direct report who is struggling to resolve a dispute
Equipped with common conflict resolutions, trade-off criteria and supported by systematic coaching…but certain complex disputes will inevitably need to be decided by managers
Matrix managers needed to make sure that, upon escalation conflict is resolved constructively and efficiently
To avoid hearing “one-sided” stories and the subsequent deadlock, subordinates must present a disagreement jointly to their boss or bosses
Goal: reduce or eliminate the suspicion, surprises, and damaged personal relationships associated with unilateral escalation
Strategy 4: Establish and enforce a requirement of joint escalation
Managers refuse to respond to unilateral escalation
Subordinates must jointly write up a description of the problem, what has been done so far to resolve it and its possible solutions
Send it to their bosses and stand ready to appear together to answer questions
Result? Requirement of systematically documenting the problem helped people think through and solve the problems themselves with fewer needing to be escalated
Strategy 4: Establish and enforce a requirement of joint escalation
Not unusual for Matrix managers to escalate problems that had been brought to them
In the end the decision was usually made unilaterally by the senior manager with the most organizational clout, which bred resentment back down the management chain
A sense of “we will win next time” took hold
Set a poor example and wasted time
Strategy 5: Ensure that managers resolve escalated conflicts directly with their counterparts
Commitment by managers (codified by a formal policy) to deal with escalated conflict directly with their counterparts
Created standing calls for managers from across the company to discuss and resolve cross-unit conflicts that were hindering important sales e.g. the difficulty sales people faced in getting needed technical resources from overstretched product groups.
Strategy 5: Ensure that managers resolve escalated conflicts directly with their counterparts
A problem is escalated, solved jointly and the decision is delivered down the chain of command…then what? How was this decision made? Based on which assumptions?
A frank discussion of the trade-offs involved provided guidance to people trying to resolve similar conflicts in the future
Clear communication about the resolution of a conflict can increase people’s willingness and ability to implement decisions
Strategy 6: Make the process for escalated conflict resolution transparent
We are undertaking a study about the dynamics of working in a matrixed organization and the prevalence and effectiveness of different influence strategies, and welcome your participation
This survey is completely anonymous; responses will only be reported in aggregate and will not be attributed to any individual or company
The survey will take approximately ten minutes to complete and you will receive a complimentary report of our findings