5 Lessons I learned in managing cross-functional teams on how to overcome conflicts, blocks, and waste of time.

We live in an era where technology is improving fast and it will continue to improve even faster in the future. I think that technology is made by humans for other humans to make our life better and simpler, so learning how to manage and extract the full potential from other people by eliminating out blocks and conflicts is a fundamental ability to achieve ambitious goals.

Below I have tried to summarize interesting lessons I have learned in managing cross-functional teams to achieve shared goals that I had to share. 

1. Overcome cross-functional project blocks 

I had been entrusted with a strategic project by the management that consisted of changing existing products to make them more in line with consumer’s needs. Unfortunately, a group of people involved in the cross-functional team told me it was impossible, since I was responsible for this project it was my task to execute, and in case of failing I would have been the only person to blame. 

I had to overcome this obstacle so I started talking to these people who blocked the project, at the beginning, they kept saying that it was impossible but by going deeper into the discussion it emerged that their problem was that this project could be potentially in contrast with their main KPI’s of cost reduction.

After I realized where the block was coming from I changed strategy and I went from “we must necessarily finalize this project because the top management asked to do so” to “I am here also to help you to think new ways to reach your goal” and when they understood this they started to change their attitude toward me. The first thing we did was to brainstorm possible ideas that allow them to reach their goal more easily even after the implementation of the new project, in this way we were able to find together new solutions that I would be never able to identify by myself alone. After we analyzed all possible solutions we choose the one that did no increase the cost of the existing product but at the same time made the product more compelling to the final user, this allowed us to overcome this block, and after we have launched the new version of the products we were able to grow to 37% in term of revenue in just 6 months.

2. Let people create time to help you with your projects

We are all humans so we feel the need to see our value recognized if we help people to emerge by showing them how their work produces concrete results they will more prone to help us because we helped them shine at work.

The company I was working for was going through a period of change and people were very busy, they didn't want to fulfill my requests, because they were very stressed. As a Product Manager, I don't have people that report directly to me but I have to work with cross-functional teams and convince them to do certain things without being able to exercise any level of authority because I'm not their boss. The answer I heard most frequently was “Alfredo I'm sorry but I already have so many other things to do so I can't do what you are asking me”.One of the best parts of my job is that PMs are measured based on the impact they produce on business results. I think that PMs should think every day about what they can do to improve firm results, broadly this is true for all company functions but in my opinion, not all functions have the privilege of being able to see how their actions impact the business results. So what I did to get people to execute my requests was to talk to them and let me explain the main activities that they were doing at that time, now having a more complete view I started to explain to them that not all activities have the same weight on the business results and that we cannot do everything but we must focus on the activities that have the highest impact for the company. For us Product Managers this is normal because but it is not so automatic for the other functions. Since it is not so obvious, I had built a vision and KPI's with them to show them how the activities I was asking them to do would have a greater impact than other activities and that the credit for this impact would also have been attributed to them.

I remember I was working on a project and I need the help of a person, I tried to ask for his help and he replied sorry I can’t at the moment I am too busy, then I started to use the approach mentioned above and we started to discuss if our priorities matched company priorities. In the end, I was able to show him how the activity I was asking could positively impact the revenue of the company, so he finally performed the activity and we met our metric goal. The most important thing happened a couple of weeks later when his boss called him to congratulate him because the CEO of the company saw an improvement in the revenue metric mainly due to the task he completed after that moment he confessed that he really like to work with me because I am able to make him look great in front of other people.

3. How to work with hostile people

If there is one thing I have learned in working together with a cross-functional group is that even a single person can block a project and in my role as Pm it is my responsibility to bring everyone on the same boat and make them work together to accomplish our goal. 

I remember immediately after starting a new job as Product Manager several colleagues had told me about this person who tended to block projects and loved to create problems for Product Managers. I was intrigued by this situation, so the first question I asked was who this person and what is his role. The answer surprised me because I imagined that it could be a manager with a strategic role for the company, instead, he was a simple employee who had an apparently marginal function compared to the company's core business. The first thought I had was I won't have to worry too much because there are more important functions, so I'll give him the time he deserves. In any case, I decided to meet this person to understand why he had this reputation as a troublemaker. Before the meeting, I set myself the goal of listening in depth without having any preliminary judgment. During the meeting like all people he began to explain the importance of his function, I objectively continue to think in my head that his function was not that important but by continuing to ask questions and trying to go deeper we ended up discussing how without his green light consumers could not use the products because they lacked the certifications that only he could give. At that moment I suddenly understood the reason for so many conflicts with other Product Managers, I was about to fall for it too because I did not consider its function from the right angle and I was underestimating the importance of his function. I finally understood that I could do my job well but without his approval, I would not have been able to launch the products and therefore all my previous work would have been wasted. After I arrived at this point I tried to better understand his job and I started to win him over because he told me that no one before me had ever been so deeply interested in his work so thanks to this I gained his trust. He lowered his defenses because he understood that he was finally able to make recognized the importance of his work and from that moment on during our project meetings he stopped creating problems but brought solutions to move projects forward. 

4. How to help executives make faster good decisions

As a manager of cross-functional projects, my week is full of meetings with people from different departments. I find these meetings very interesting, but they can be very frustrating if not conducted in the right way. It goes without saying that it is important to have an agenda and a clear goal for everyone before starting a meeting, but this alone is not enough. What happens very often is that people tend to deviate from the central goal of the meeting by focusing on marginal aspects or after a meeting of three hours no decision is made and we have to make a new meeting to continue the conversation and make a decision.

I remember I was preparing for an important meeting with executives to present the roadmap for our product portfolio. From my previous experience with this type of meeting, I knew that this type of meeting could result in long hours of discussion that ended with no-decision. To avoid this risk, I changed my approach, and here is how I did:

Weeks before this meeting for each main important point of the meeting I imagined conducting the meeting and discussing this with the executives about this topic. I started to think about what questions and concerns each executive could bring to the table that will prevent us to make a decision. It may seem a really hard thing to do but if you know by which KPIs every function and executive is measured, you can start guessing the main concerns of every person participating in the meeting. Of course, you can not anticipate 100% of the issues that will be discussed during the meeting but if you do this exercise correctly I will guarantee you arrive at the core problem and make a shared decision more easily. So after I finish imagining the main possible questions and concerns I created one slide that addresses these concerns in which I explained how these concerns may impact our decision and what is the worst thing it can happen if we do not address properly those concerns, and what we can do to improve the situation if the worst scenario will occur.

In the end, I listed all possible advantages and disadvantages to make that particular decision. By summarized in one slide in advance all these important aspects I made them clear that even if the worst-case scenario occurs making a decision will be better than not taking any decision at all.

The result of this approach was that the meeting was scheduled to last for three hours instead it lasted for half the time, we were able to understand better and clearly the main topics in detail and all the possible scenarios, but above all, we were able to make a decision and move all the project forward and be first on the market with our new products.

5. Work with technical people

Another thing I like about my work is that I learn every day new things, in my opinion, this is mainly due because I have the chance to work with really smart people with different expertise. I like to work with technical people because they are passionate about their work and if you build a good relationship with them, they are more than happy to explain to you technical concepts.

As Product Manager, I work with engineers, designers, scientists, and even if they have such different backgrounds, I found some commonalities to work effectively with them.

They are passionate about their field; they value their time and they want to feel somehow special because they own certain skills that are not so common. So my strategy to work with them is to show them that I am interested in their expertise and I do this by asking a lot of questions and taking note of what they say and from my experience they are pretty happy to have this conversation with me because I make feel them special because you can tell that they like this conversation because they can talk for hours without stopping, and their eyes are full of joy.

On the opposite side, the worst thing it can happen by working with technical people is that you make them feel like they waste their time because you made repeat them the same task multiple times because you as PM you were not clear about what should be built. In order to overcome this potential error, I tend to give them tasks to do only after I did my work as PM and I designed a clear vision for the next steps. One main challenge that I had is explaining the fact that Product Manager expertise (understanding the voice of the customers) can not be 100% accurate like their expertise that is based on objective facts, unfortunately, when it comes to understanding consumer needs we can not be 100% accurate and we have to go through different trial and errors.

I remember one time I had a difficult time explaining to an engineer why I was asking to eliminate a feature he had built and I suggested building a new one for a particular product. I tried my best to explain to him that according to consumers' needs this was the best thing to do but despite my effort, I was not able to convince him. So, I tried a different approach and I asked him to come with me to the next session of the consumer's interviews in order to see with his eyes what I was trying to explain. So he came with me and he had the chance to see that the feature he personally built was not so relevant for consumers instead users tried to use our product in a different way but they could not because the feature I asked to build was not there yet. After our session with the consumer, he went back to his office to build the new features, and when we relaunched this product it had an increase in sales of 42%,

What I learned from this experience was that everyone has his own expertise and it is our job to put technical people in the situation to be happy to share their knowledge but at the same time, Product Manager has unique expertise about consumes need and it is also our job to let people with different skills enter our world to show them why we are building a certain thing.

Conclusion

To sum up, I believe that the ability of a Product Manager is to have a 360-degree overview and he/she must able to considering also very different themes, to help other people in the team to see and understand these big pictures by establishing priorities together and to be able to extract the best from them by understanding people's abilities and flaws in-depth, trying to maximize their potential to achieve a shared goal.

A person, even if extremely capable, will not be able to achieve what a group of motivated and well-coordinated people can achieve together so I continue to think that this soft skill is not so soft and I will continue to look for ways to continue improving. 

A useful piece of advice I can give to try to improve this skill is to stop and think after each meeting or after the end of a cross-functional project about the things that went well and those that can be improved. When I do this reflection, I like to write it down to clarify my thoughts and to create over time a set of new habits that gradually help me to improve the cooperation of a cross-functional team. If you do this exercise consistently, I guarantee you that over time you will be surprised how much you learned and improved.