X-teams for Distributed Leadership
Deborah Ancona
Founder of the MIT Leadership Center at MIT | Co-founder of xLEAD
Welcome to my very first xNEWS newsletter, where we will explore principles and practices of x-teams in an exponentially changing world.
Hopefully you already caught the first newsletter from my partner in this experiment, Henrik Bresman. You can learn more about Henrik here and me here .
Henrik and I plan to publish a biweekly newsletter in the form of a dialogue. We hope you will join us with insights and questions along the way. If you are interested, please hit subscribe.
Let's get started.
Thanks, Henrik, for kicking us off by looking at Why Good Teams Fail .??
I would like to start with a note about why we started this newsletter. Working on the theory and practice of x-teams over the past years has been a humbling experience. The creativity and passion that we have seen as people step up to do this work has been remarkable. So, we dedicate this xNEWS letter to the x-teams across the world who are doing amazing things. I just finished teaching x-teams to a set of executives at Innovation North headed by Tima Bansal and to the EMBA’s and Sloan Fellows at MIT Sloan with Kate Isaacs. They left ready to implement new ideas so I will use their insights to populate this week’s letter. We are in awe of what you do.?
Next, I want to respond to Henrik’s question, “What are your reflections on x-teams in an exponentially-changing world 15 years later?” and also try to capture some of what some recent students and x-team implementers (or x-ers) have found most useful to remember about x-teams.??
Reflection #1:? One thing that has not changed much is executives’ mental models of teams
I start with something that has not changed much over 15 years, which causes students to want to remember exactly what an x-teams is and how it operates.?
When I ask executives, “What does a high-performing team look like?” They respond with things like clear goals and roles, good communication, psychological safety, and processes to resolve conflicts and build trust. And the internal environment of the team is important—but it is no longer enough.? Now teams also need to be externally active—they need to be x-teams, externally-oriented teams that combine robust internal work with external outreach.??
X-teams operate with the mantra of “Out Before In.”
Given the propensity to think inwardly, our x-ers most want to remember that x-teams are externally-active and practice “Out Before In.”? That is, before they set goals and determine how they will work, they go out to understand what customers want, where the competition is moving, what technologies may impact their work, and how the organization might receive their work.??
X-teams have 3 Core External Activities
And the way to bring this “Out Before In” strategy alive is through sensemaking, ambassadorship, and task coordination. Through sensemaking, x-teams are mapping the exponentially-changing world they now inhabit and then coming up with innovations that meet the challenges of that world.?
X-teams also practice ambassadorship—aligning with senior leaders so that they get the buy-in and resources that they need, but also to line up multiple levels and functions as a way to practice distributed leadership. Finally, x-teams practice task coordination to manage the many interdependencies with other groups inside and outside of the organization.?
We will come back to each of these concepts to add more depth in future newsletters, but just fyi, my recent x-ers are starting their out-before-in approach by bringing a customer into the team, exploring potential new partners outside the organization, learning how others have used AI for financial modeling, and showing how an innovation team can shift a bureaucratic culture.?
Reflection #2: The need for x-teams is even greater than before
A core impetus for creating x-teams now is our exponentially-changing world. As Henrik mentioned, the world today is not just uncertain and turbulent, but it is also moving at an accelerating rate. The speed of change is simply going faster and faster. This new world poses many challenges for leaders.? Top on this list for our x-ers: the rapid changes in technologies such as AI and the need to keep up, recruiting new talent, making people feel part of the organization when many are remote, rising energy costs, and shorter product development cycles. In short, the environment is different than it was 15 years ago. And so, too, are our organizations.?
In this world, our bureaucratic, command and control mode of organizing just doesn’t work.
During the pandemic, for example, there was a huge need to develop new vaccines and medications as quickly as possible. These innovations could not be done by one team or one organization on its own. Rather, teams of scientists needed to generate new approaches to drug development by working with each other and with other specialists within the organization.? They, in turn, had to communicate with senior leadership about progress, problems, funding, and staffing. Since not enough know-how was available in the organization, these teams reached out to academics, research centers, and experts to fill in gaps. Furthermore, we saw Pharma companies that are competitors (like Takeda and Novartis), working together to solve the problem of the moment.??
This example illustrates that x-teams, and teams of teams, have become the basic building blocks of organizations that have shifted to being more Nimble and Distributed Leadership forms. Nimble organizations (others call them agile, networked, or learning organizations) turn the hierarchy on its head, with power shifting from being solely at the top of the organization to lower levels where entrepreneurial leaders reside. Nimble organizations provide autonomy to these people, with guardrails, enabling innovation.? See my HBR article with Elaine Backman and Kate Isaacs.?
These nimble organizations are based on the idea of Distributed leadership (DL). DL simply means that leadership is distributed throughout the organization and even into the broader ecosystem, wherever expertise, knowledge, or motivation is found. Senior leaders are still very important—they form and communicate the mission, vision, strategy, and priorities of the organization.? But now they are joined by people at all levels of the organization who create new products, processes, business models, and mechanisms to both shape strategy and bring it to life. This is the dynamic we saw in the example above, and many other innovations that were spurred by the pandemic. Yet this new way of operating is here to stay.?
In short, in the past 15 years, the world has sped up, and our organizations have become more distributed. X-teams enable organizations to adapt quickly and to engage and coordinate actors to harness distributed leadership.??
While I have pushed on the external nature of teams, the idea is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. That is, building a robust internal environment for teams is even more important for x-teams.
Henrik, what should we think about in creating such an environment????????
Thank you for joining me for my first edition of xNEWS. Don’t forget to subscribe.
Leadership Expert | Keynote Speaker | Trusted Advisor | Executive Coach | Author | CEO | Captain, US Marine Corps
1 年x-Teams is a great book, and I look forward to more xNews!
Founder & CEO | MBA | MS Org Dynamics-UPenn | Speaker | Author | Mentor | Coach/Consultant—Leverage your strengths, skills & success.
1 年Congratulations Prof. Deborah. Look forward!
Thanks Deborah, plenty for me to build on in my upcoming xNEWS response!
Professor seeking to create a better world through business
1 年Deborah spoke to our lab at Innovation North. She opened our eyes to the future of teams, which is especially important in today’s turbulent world.
Catalyzing Career Growth by Igniting Personal Momentum
1 年Studying X-Teams and inhaling a lot of great literature on the subject has made me a true X-Team fan. In addition, researching the leadership lid, was a real persuader for also e.g. the 4 Caps. I look forward to each and every newsletter. All the best for this great journey.