Bring Your "A" Game to Drive Change

Highly matrixed organizations are complex in and of themselves, often fraught with ambiguous reporting relationships, inconsistent agendas, and slow, ill-defined decision-making processes.

Leading cross-functional initiatives through a highly matrixed organization can be confounding — on a good day.?

Leaders who have learned to navigate the complexities are a special breed.?Those who thrive in such an environment lean into?two “A” game leadership attributes:?Alignment and Accountability.?They take nothing for granted throughout the process.

Alignment?means that those involved and affected are?in line, or in agreement, with you.?It includes norms for how a team works together and who owns what and provides clarity on deliverables and what constitutes success.

Let’s face it, most of us have found ourselves in a situation that sounded like a good idea at the time — only to realize later that it wasn’t. So, it’s not enough to gain agreement at the?get-go?of an initiative; rather,?it must be checked each step of the way.

Alignment requires a project management mindset, in which each milestone is an opportunity to check in on commitments and concerns.?All too often, the train is too far down the track before a leader realizes that one of the cars has derailed. Re-affirming alignment requires time, patience, and an open mind.?

Accountability?means holding each other responsible for commitments and deliverables.

To be effective, accountability requires a process for?keeping track of who is on the hook for what by when. This can happen via email, text, Slack, meeting minutes, performance objectives, etc.?Without a “formal” system, it is all too easy for stakeholders to leave a meeting or Zoom session with different impressions.?

While there are plenty of other factors that contribute to whether a cross-functional initiative is successful (i.e. politics, etc.),?alignment and accountability stand out as to key skills within a leader’s control.

For those who love the murky world of leading through complexity, these skills become second nature and make the difference between a poorly executed initiative and one that works superbly.

This article was originally published on the?Coach2Growth?blog.