There is no “I” in “We”—and that’s a bad thing

There is no “I” in “We”—and that’s a bad thing

Every company I work with appreciates the importance of teamwork and collaboration, and most have made it a core value in their culture. All that is to the good. So, what’s the bad part?

Well, in a small company, there isn’t one. When a tough issue comes up, when a plan gets missed or a competitor gets a jump ahead, the team assembles, hashes out what happened, figures out the lessons to be learned, and sets about implementing the fix. This is why people love to work in start-ups.

But when start-ups succeed, when they grow their product portfolio and expand into new markets, the core team gets dispersed. Now you have many teams, each of which is an expert in their local domain, but each of which is less certain about what is happening in other domains. To make matters more challenging, commitments made in one domain can have impact on other domains, and so second-order, and even third-order, effects have to be considered. This is where the collaborative model breaks down.

There are more and more issues to socialize, and that leads to more and more meetings where people in the room may get to an answer, but not all the people are in the room, and so there has to be another meeting, and another after that. Pretty soon you realize it takes 10 people to say yes and only one to say no. That’s when the good people begin to leave.

There is a very straightforward fix for all this. It is called single points of accountability. For every material outcome that requires cross-functional collaboration, the idea is to assign a single person to take accountability for ensuring that outcome is achieved. This person cannot dictate terms. It is still a collaborative enterprise. Nor have you done a reorg. What you have done is identified the steward of each material outcome such that everyone in your company knows who the focal point is for all decisions made relative to it. Each steward is, in effect, the “I” in “we.”

It is hard to overstate the impact of making this change. There are still meetings, but only when the steward calls them. If someone else has an issue, they don’t raise it at a meeting—they go and see the steward. If you have to escalate, by all means do so, but the higher-ups are going to ultimately hold the steward accountable. The number of cycles this takes out of decision-making is breath-takingly large. And the clarity of how things get done increases dramatically. 

One final point. Many of the people who get assigned to this role will not have the experience to fly solo. That is fine. They can be coached and mentored on the job. You are not trying to free up their bosses to do other things. Rather, you are freeing up the rest of the organization from the tyranny of the ten who can say no. At the same time, you are creating accelerated career development for the person owning the outcome. It is hard to imagine a greater gift you can give either to them or to your enterprise.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

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Geoffrey Moore | Zone to Win | Geoffrey Moore Twitter | Geoffrey Moore YouTube

I especially like you ICYMI point...”while there is one and only leader per cross-functional initiative, there are many, many leaders in total. Anyone can be made the steward of an outcome. The key is to avoid the situation where “we” are accountable for it.” It says, the leader reminds everyone they should keep the outcomes in mind. It’s not an agenda item.

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Joanna Beerman

Sr. Director, Industry Product Marketing, Salesforce

4 年
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I agree ??. I am a proponent of the Product Manager perform this function and acting as a GM or mini CEO. They are best positioned to define and deliver on customer needs - economically - across the value stream for their product or solution.? Too many companies view this work as administrative and non-value add, this throw PMs at it. However, it is one of the most strategic from a value realization perspective and thus needs to be led by someone who understands both the strategic and operational context ?and can drive value creation by making the tough trade offs across the business.?

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Samantha Wallace, PMP, CCP, CMP

Founder @re-mom | Changemaker | Transformation Executive

5 年

Melissa Miller This is a great way to explain the value of the SPOC model, Sales Enablement SME, CSM Enablement SME on projects.

David Mitchell

Manager, Field Sales Engineering

5 年

Geoff, great insight as always.? And true ownership comes only with trust.?? Trust is essential to speed of decision making.? I'll never forget my first meeting with a new boss at the time, ( S. Jay Nalli ) He told me in the first meeting, "I have your back!"? Instantly I had permission to operate as an owner with speed.

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