Effective Strategies for Cross Functional Teamwork

Today we are unpacking a topic that can make or break the success of an organization: cross-functional collaboration. Today we're talking about what happens when different departments and teams come together, or rather what should happen in order for them to be as successful, productive, and effective as possible. It's about breaking down the silos, tearing off the blinders, and building bridges across the corporate landscape. So we're going to walk through the challenges of cross-functional collaboration and then the things that it takes for you to be an influential leader in managing that type of hybrid cross-functional team. And lastly, strategies for you to overcome those challenges and be an influential cross-functional leader. Stay with us.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, Bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies, and stories. So if you're ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome, and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

When it comes to bringing together multiple teams, multiple departments, multiple functions in order to manage and lead, a strategy or initiative that's going on in your organization, what do you do to really proactively plan out what the hurdles might be, what the challenges might be, what conflicts could come up? What is it you need to be doing in order to be a very influential collaborator and team builder, especially when it comes to pulling together individuals from departments and functions and areas of the business that you're not directly aligned to. You don't have them as direct reports. So there's no guarantee that they're going to heed your advice or take your lead. And I have a regular conversation with clients when it comes to their frustration, even when it's just merely Engaging someone in an email chain that, um, they're looking for a response from, and yet that individual doesn't necessarily report to them or even work on their same team, and therefore the response time is slow, or what they send back is very cryptic or not complete, or whatever the case might be. It— even in the simplest forms of having to cross-collaborate can be very, very challenging for managers, let alone for, you know, your team members. And so it's really important for you as a leader to walk into that type of situation, even for your own team working together, really considering, okay, what are these challenges going to be? What are the conflicts that are going to come up? Where are we going to hit walls? And then what do I need to do to ensure that we do get the response, we do get the follow-through, we do get the decision-making, we do get the escalation that we need, even from people that don't necessarily directly report to us? Because cross-functional collaboration, cross-functional initiatives, you know, happen each and every day.. And therefore, you as a leader need to ensure that you're proactively working through and navigating that potential challenge, that potential opportunity that you have in front of you. So the first thing is, let's walk through some challenges so you're aware of them. Some of them are going to seem really obvious, and then others are going to be a little bit tricky. And how you need to go about addressing them. So the first area is going to be communication. Overall, the barriers of communication between, you know, those functions, those different businesses, those different teams. It's one thing that you've gotten into a routine and a cadence and a style with your immediate team. But now, as you're bringing together different teams, different people, uh, different ways of doing things, then communication can get very tricky, get very challenging. And therefore you really need to focus on how and what do you need to know up front and going in and throughout in order for you to then kind of adjust and be flexible with how you gone about communicating in the past and what communication style you need in order to be successful. So communication is key. The next one would be to ensure that everyone on those teams, and even those that they work for, are all aligned to the objectives of this initiative or, or project that's going on. And so you may have, you know, kind of the, the staff of a team working on this, on this project. And, and you have very little to do necessarily with their bosses, their managers, the ones that are dictating their priorities and, you know, their styles and their ways of doing things. And so what you also want to be proactively focused on in planning is, all right, so I have all these individuals, they report to all these different people within these different functions, even in different businesses. And what can I do to engage those individuals to also align them to what it is that we need to accomplish as a collective team? You would think, you would think, well, it's all, you know, whatever you're working on is for the good of the business, the good of the company. And everyone walks into those type of projects with a very optimistic, with a very supportive and collaborative mindset. However, you get into the grind of the day in, day out, the grind of the deadlines, the grind of the business, the grind of the deadlines and the— but then you get into that grind of the day in, day out business, the deadlines, the priorities, the budget, the resources. And then all of a sudden things start to, you know, get a little bit dicey. So you want to ensure that you've defined for yourself what the goal, the objectives, the measurements, the charter, the vision for the project is. You communicate that with the managers of those individuals that are going to be on this cross-functional project. And then you then communicate it regularly and consistently and in great detail to those on your team. And that'll also address some of the barriers that you have in communication, because you can't over-communicate when it comes to big projects, as you know, on their own, let alone cross-functional projects. Communication is absolutely key, because then what you have to keep in mind too is What those managers and yourself are thinking about for your own project or initiative is the resources and the allocation of those resources, the amount of time that's required of those resources to take part in a project that isn't necessarily tied back to them directly. And yet they're, you know, they, they're needing to and having to assign a resource to a project that they have no control over. And again, you need to be influential and supportive in recognizing that from those managers of what resources you're going to require of their people. And so all of a sudden that can get very, very dicey. And a lot of conflict, a lot of issues can come up with just the, the, the time, you know, that the project's going to require, the priority that it has to take, and the way that the resources have to be utilized during a time period of a, you know, cross-functional project or initiative. So keep that in mind as well. So we have communication so far, alignment to objectives, and resource allocation. And then the next one where people, a lot of managers don't really think about, this is an area that I have a lot of conversation with them on, to kind of provoke some new creative ideas from themselves is they don't consider the cultural differences. And what I mean by that is each team, even within the same business, has their own way of going about, you know, daily operations of that team. Even, you know, you would have Team 1, Team 2, Team 3. You know, managers within a single business. And each one of those managers have their own style. They have their own expectations. They have their own kind of requirements of their, their team members. And therefore they create a culture all of their own. And now you're even within the same business, you're putting together multiple teams. And there could be some disparity in how each of those communicate, the processes they follow, the tools that they use, and overall just the style and expectation that they have, the culture that they have amongst themselves. You know, you can have one team that the culture is very non-transparent, non-inclusive, non-engagement, and then you have another one who is an open book and, you know, they welcome everybody's ideas and it's a kumbaya. And so all of a sudden you're bringing together possibly these different cultures, and you have to figure out, leading up this initiative or project, you have to figure out how do you kind of, you know, effectively influence all those different cultures. All right, now culture, I know often people think about kind of the, the broader scope of culture, and of course you would hope that The company culture floats down to a, maybe a business or a function or a team, which then floats down to the individuals. However, in reality, that is true. However, then managers create their own individual culture. So think about that because it's often something very overlooked from the leaders that I work with. The next one would be, of course, as you would already expect, that as you're bringing various people from various functions, various departments, even those in that are doing the same job, that there could be gaps in their skill or in the knowledge, expertise, their experience. And so all of a sudden you have, you know, similar roles coming together, but they support different functions or different businesses. And you would think, okay, this one person from Marketing, you know, probably, you know, does or knows the same things as this person from marketing over here. And yet, there could be, you know, not only one's more seasoned, one's more experienced, but at the same time, they're— what they know, what they— the tools, the resources, the skill set, the knowledge base that they have could be very different, could be coming from other industries, other sectors, just overall other areas of operating a business. And so you need to kind of recognize and look through this cross-functional team up front to say, all right, what are the skills that I need, which hopefully you've done already, but what are the skills that I need? What is the knowledge? What is the expertise? What is the experience? Some could be novice, some could be very, very, you know, expert. You've already kind of laid that out. Now you have the team members, and you really need to look at all of those team members to really understand where are you, but recognize that those knowledge gaps, those skills gaps, that expertise gap could cause you challenges, and you need to get ahead of it as you work your way into that project or initiative. The next one that when, you know, push comes to shove is probably one of the biggest challenges for individuals leading up a cross-functional team is that of accountability and decision-making. It can often be hard enough to hold your own people accountable, the ones that actually directly report to you, let alone someone else's who is not directly aligned to you. Who you, in their mind, in that employee's mind, you have no right to tell me what I need to do, when I need to do it, that I'm doing it wrong or right. You know, my boss would do that. Well, no, that's not the case. And hopefully what we talked about in the communication and alignment of objectives in working with these cross-functional managers, you are already kind of discussing and agreeing upon the process for accountability and decision-making. Who's going to be the final decision-maker? Who is going to hold someone accountable, even when they're, you know, reporting to you as the cross-functional leader and not that direct report or that direct manager? That conversation needs to happen in order for you to be effective. And then, of course, there's going to be a challenge around the, what I'll call the integration of the, of the tools and the resources and the support that all of these individuals are currently working with or have an expectation of. So again, you're bringing in different teams who have different ways of doing things. And even like one marketing department over here could have different tools that they're using, different resources, different systems, different processes than this marketing team. And therefore you, you know, also need to be really thinking about and planning out and addressing, all right, so for this particular cross-functional initiative, what is going to be the processes, the tools, the resources, the support, along with the accountability and decision-making and communication? Everything has to be looked at fragmented across those functions, but then brought together to come up with, a culture, a way of doing things for your cross-functional team. And then lastly, you have to recognize as a challenge that it's going to be difficult enough— it always is— for individuals to really get a grasp on, why do I even need to do this? Why are we even doing this project? What, what is so important about this new tool or technology or business sector that we're working on. And the only reason why they challenge it and question it and doubt it is just because of their resistance to change. And so you have to recognize that you're going to have a challenge in that people are going to, you know, kind of come together and maybe, you know, forcibly, and not kind of run to the table in full support. And you need to figure out, okay, so how do you get them to be all on board with what it is that you need to be doing. So I'll tell you a quick story. Back in my probably late 20s, I was moved from a company in South Florida to a sister company in Atlanta, in Atlanta. And that's how I landed up in Atlanta. And then not long after I got to Atlanta, I was then told that I was going to be heading up a integration of systems for a merger between these two companies. So this— the company I worked for, for 12 years, and the company that I, you know, moved to in Atlanta. And so I, I knew that, that I was going to have all of these challenges and more to get all of these individuals to work with not only me because I left them. And that's a story in itself. But also work with the new functions of the sister company that I worked with at that, at that time in Atlanta. I needed to get Miami and Atlanta collaborating together, working together for about a year or more in order to make this integration and this overall merger and acquisition successful. But keep in mind, The Miami group was being acquired and therefore risk of them losing their job. And, you know, here I had worked with them for many years and now I have to go back and get them on board to work with me in order to successfully accomplish this integration. And trust me when I say I didn't have all these things thought out. It's why I know what what it takes now in order to be successful, uh, in kind of bringing together different teams, different people, different functions in order for you to then be successful in the initiative or project that you're leading up. Here is a blend of interpersonal, strategic, and leadership skills that you really need to focus on to become an influential leader, which will make your job so much easier. When you're leading up a cross-functional team. Now, what I would suggest you do as we talk through these things is make a note of them and then assess yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. Are you novice or are you a master? And if you fall anywhere under a 7, then definitely think through and make note when we get to the strategies, think through what you could be doing to level yourself up in that particular type of skill or trait. So then your life, your team's life, and the business will all have a much easier time working together and be successful. So the first one would be, and it's the number one key thing you need to keep in mind, just purely to be successful in business, and that is to really build relationships. If you have a relationship with your team members, not just to the point of, you know, knowing their name or maybe, you know, the dog's name that they have or when their birthday is. But you kind of get to know who they are, what they want in their career, what their goals are, what really kind of, you know, kind of gets them stuck, what are their challenges and the barriers. But at the same time, what are their strengths and talents and expertise that you might be able to leverage? But if you really build key relationships with individuals, that would make it so much easier for you to then bring them all together to work with you. Now, you, you know, you could be bringing together a team, let's say it's 20, and some of them you've never met before. So relationships don't have to already be in place for that, for you to then be successful with that individual, you know, on an initiative that you're all of a sudden leading up, starting that relationship. The moment that you, you know, do have an opportunity to meet them and include them and bring them into the fold for your initiative, you can start building that relationship and being very intentional, very authentic, and, and very focused on them. My favorite saying is serve others to serve you. Serve others, help them be successful.. And by doing that, you're gonna also build on the next skill, which is building mutual respect. You build relationships, true relationships, caring, authentic, real relationships with individuals, whether you met them yesterday or 10 years ago. You are also, as a result of that, and if you are serving them for them to be successful, then you're going to build mutual respect and trust amongst those individuals. Now, part of your leadership role could be very challenging, could create conflict and issues with individuals, with those team members that you're building, you know, those relationships and that mutual respect with. However, even when there's conflict, even when there's challenges, you won't lose that respect as long as you maintain their trust in you. But the moment you break their trust is where you're going to start struggling. So that's where, going back to the challenges, you have to address communication, you have to address the skill gap and the knowledge gap, you have to address aligning objectives, holding people accountable. And so as long as you can, you know, address those challenges, um, and you are also working on upleveling or elevating your skills around building relationships and gaining mutual, mutual respect, the trust will come naturally. And then of course, like I said, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate. And don't communicate just to communicate. Make sure it's effective, it's clear, it's concise, it's detailed, it's giving them what they need to be successful. At the same time, on a cadence that will keep them up to date, that will make them feel included, that will bring up any issues or conflicts or challenges upfront versus letting them linger. And then all of a sudden they're brought up, you know, as a surprise. But ensuring that you're communicating effectively is also critical for you to then be able to be an influential leader. And then, of course, going back to the alignment with objectives, you need to have shared goals amongst the team. So you might all have all, you know, so you might have overall project goals, project measurements, project charter, project vision that you're then communicating and getting everyone on board with. But you also need to ensure that there are shared goals, not only for the project before you know, the success of the team. You know, what, what goals can you be creating that will inspire and motivate and really allow your, your team members to kind of stretch themselves and give them, give everything that they have to making that your initiative, those shared goals successful. And so you being kind of building those relationships, gaining that respect, communicating consistently and effectively, and sharing goals with each other that you're all accountable. And so, you know, when, when you succeed, you succeed. When you, you have a challenge or you misstep, you know, the team missteps. Or in— let's flip it— when the team member missteps or team missteps, you are right there with them saying, I, you know, I missed step 2. Because most likely it might have been that you didn't communicate clearly, give them the proper instruction, give them the support that they're looking for. And so get alignment on shared goals as part of your, you know, natural routine as an influential leader. And then ensure that you're working to leverage both formal and informal influence. So informal influence would just mean leveraging those relationships, that respect, that trust, that, you know, that communication on a, you know, consistent basis to influence a change, influence someone doing something that they don't want to do, influence a decision that needs to be made or an issue that needs to be resolved. Resolved. At the same time, there's more formal influence that you need to really get a handle on how to structure it. So I'm often asked about— someone wants to make a proposal to an executive. It could be for a new product or a new service. It could be for a new job opportunity. It could be for a raise, could be for a a customer initiative, whatever the case might be. And so their job is now to influence this executive to buy in and agree to what it is that they want. So that's more formal to where then I say, OK, so you need to build them a business case. You need to formally share with them what is the business problem, what is the impact to the business, to the team, to you, whomever, what is your proposed solutions, even some how-tos— how are you going to go about doing it so someone else doesn't have to think about it? And when can it be done? And so forth and so on. So you're really working on formalizing how you need to influence a decision, a team member to do what you need them to do, deadlines to be met, whatever the case might be. And then there's that informal influence that you're naturally working on and naturally doing as you're building relationships with respect and trust and communication. The next thing to really be an influential leader is demonstrate empathy, demonstrate understanding that, you know what, the challenges we talked about, you know what, I understand, you know, you're not accustomed to working with all these different functions. With all these different team members. You're not accustomed to kind of reporting to me and taking direction from me versus your boss. You're not accustomed to the way I do things, you know, versus how you, you know, you do things or your boss asks you to do things, so forth and so on. So, you know, you really want to kind of meet them where they are, find out where they are. Are you good? You know, do you have any questions? Is there anything that you're struggling with? Do you have the support that you need? Is there anything that I can provide for you? You know, how are you doing? All right. And then really work to understand it, not accept, oh, I'm good, but really dig in and work to understand what is it that they're experiencing with their role, with the team, and with you. So really work to demonstrate empathy and understanding, and then ensure that you're, you know, you're creating that inclusive culture. We talked about the cultural differences, but an influential leader really knows how to include everyone, hear everyone, listen to everyone. Sure, they're going to make their own decision the way that they need to make it for the, you know, good of the the goals and the objectives in the business, but at the same time, they're willing and they're patient and they're intentional about ensuring that everyone's involved in, in kind of what is happening and how it's happening. So it's almost as if you're kind of facilitating very inclusive decision-making, planning, ideation, so forth and so on. Make sure that it's very inclusive. And everyone feels as if they're, they're taking part and they're responsible and they're contributing to the success of the project. OK. And then, of course, you want to ensure— because remember, a challenge was everyone's going to potentially come, come to a cross-functional team with different resources, systems, processes, tools they use. Jargon, just overall, you know, differences. And so as you've planned it and then as you're now operating, you're getting the feel for, okay, so now that I understand how everyone operates, this is how, you know, this is the framework we're going to work within. This is the framework of the resources, the processes, the tools, the support system, you know, the accountability and decision-making process, whatever it might be. You know, you kind of figure that out by engaging everyone, including everyone. And you kind of formulate it for now, whether it's a month or a year-long cross-functional initiative. You kind of are able to share that, communicate that with everyone. And in that way, they also are building that respect, that trust. Their resistance to change is breaking down., and you are being seen as an influential leader. Okay, so make sure you're providing them what it is that they need while at the same time ensuring that it's, you know, consistent across the board for the project that you're leading up. And then, of course, you know, your team members want recognition and reward. Now, I've mentioned here before on the, on the show that last year I spent a good amount of time talking to hundreds, hundreds of employees along with their managers, asking them one, one of the questions would be, what is it that you need from a reward or recognition perspective? And 99% of them said, all I need is a thank you. All I need is an attaboy. They just want to be recognized as seen, as contributing, as valuable. Yes, is money nice? Free lunches nice? Gift cards nice? Sure. But all 99% of them were emphatic about all I need is an attaboy, a thank you. And then lastly, wrap all of this together, right? Wrap all of this together, building relationships, building respect and trust, communicating effectively. You know, knowing the decision-making process, leveraging formal and informal influence. You can continue down the line. And what you want to do too is you want to now model all of those behaviors, all of those skills, all of those traits and qualities to your team members. I often will say, you know, teams are like parents and children. The children look to the parent to see what's acceptable, what's not acceptable, what they should do, what they should not do, how they should talk, how they should not talk. And so you want to really ensure that you are acting as the role model, you are behaving, you are leading, your style is what it is you want from other people. And therefore, they're seeing the, the type of leader that they want to be and that they're willing to follow and be influenced by. All right. So those are skills that you could be focused on in order for you to be an effective, influential leader, especially, especially on a cross-functional team, let alone with your own team or anywhere with throughout your career. All right. Let's dive into the strategies, the strategies for both overcoming the challenges that we've discussed, as well as strategies for you becoming an influential leader. The first would be to ensure you have those clearly defined goals and objectives, even the charter of whatever initiative or project it is that you are bringing together this cross-functional team. But more importantly, all right, so based on that, what goals are we shooting for? What measurements? What are the objectives? What are your expectations? What do you need from me? So forth and so on. Making sure they're laid out in a document very clearly that you can then share with others, but also then discussed, collaborated on. You answer questions around, you get everybody on board with all, you know, with clear understanding and support around what those goals and objectives are. So that's your first strategy. If you get that in place, then everyone has a platform to work off of. They know they can go back to those goals and objectives and see what it is that they're, they're tasked to do and what it is that they need to be doing in order for everyone to be successful. And then around that, And you can even kind of insert it at some point is where you really want to lay out kind of what are those standards around communicating. You want to communicate effectively and consistently, as we discussed. And so what does that look like? What is it going to be? What are the mediums you're going to use? You know, is the primary going to be email? Are we texting? Are we getting into meetings? Are we using Zoom? Are we using Teams? Are we, you know, sharing information in a shared portal? What are the ways that the team is going to communicate? But more importantly, also the cadence. Are there going to be, you know, daily touch bases? Are there going to be weekly team meetings? Is there going to be a monthly review of the status of where you're at with the project? What are all the factors that go into ensuring Ensuring that not only are you communicating effectively to the team, but the team members understand clearly how they should be communicating with each other. Number 3 would be, and then ensure that you have that schedule of the regular meetings, the regular touch bases. When do you expect individuals to kind of status you or update you, let alone when you want to bring the team together as a whole? Is that weekly? Is that every 2 weeks? Is that once a month?

It—

what are you going to do with not only the team, but also with the cross-functional managers? What are you going to do with the sponsors of this project or initiative? What is your schedule for, or your means of communicating up the chain to all the major stakeholders that are looking at this project for the business? So get a clear communication plan in place., as you go into kind of leading up this initiative that you're responsible for. And once you understand all of that, you can say to yourself, OK, so what are those roles, responsibilities, skills, knowledge, expertise, experience that I need on the team? What, what do we need to be accomplishing? And therefore, you know, what are those technical or business are those soft or hard skills that are need— I need? What is the expertise? What are going to be the roles and responsibilities? You, as the leader of a project or initiative or even a team, you're not doing everything. You're going to now delegate as well some big chunks, maybe function, maybe, maybe different sectors or segments of the project. You're going to also have potentially sub-team leaders to where they're taking the lead on certain work. And so really kind of create your org chart. And each box has an individual in it, or you can even put a job role in it. And then what are the responsibilities of that role? And then you can always include a name to it. After you've done that. But make sure you have it because then you'll know and be able to address that challenge if there are any gaps in the skills, knowledge, expertise, experience that you need for, for the project. Number 5 would be, of course, we've talked about culture. You know, what is that culture you want this team to operate under? You know, are you going to be an inclusive, collaborative, transparent, um, uh, you know, supportive culture or team. And therefore, what does that look like? What does that feel like? What is the experience you're trying to create for team members, but also for those, for those around that are looking in on this project and in on you and the team? What do you want them to kind of have a perception of as far as, um, as far as what that, that team makeup, that team, uh, style is. You'd be surprised because some will define it as kind of more authoritarian, more, um, directional, more mandated, and then others wanted it to be free-flowing and collaborative and engaging. And then you have, you know, everything else in between. So define for yourself What is it, or how is it, that you want this culture, this team to look like? OK, that's number 5. Number 6 would be really ensure— remember, you have all these skills and knowledge and expertise and experience levels. You have gaps, you have overflows, you have some that, you know, have more skill and knowledge than you necessarily need, but while others may be lacking. So ensure that you're doing that assessment when you're looking at the roles and the responsibilities.. And then you're ensuring that there's resources and support and training for anyone that needs to fill in the gaps or needs to uplevel themselves or needs to stretch themselves and try something new. So lay that out as well, especially once you have your org chart, your roles and responsibilities, your— you know what kind of skills and knowledge you need. Well, make sure that if there's gaps, they're addressed. And the training, development, mentoring, coaching is provided. And then if there's ones you want to stretch or challenge, you're also thinking thoughtfully and intentionally around that as well. OK, number 7 would be going back to the challenge that we talked about in regards to cultures. Slash teams have different ways of doing business, have different resources, processes, tools, systems that they use. And so you want to ensure that you've looked over exactly, you know, what it is that you need to accomplish, um, what the, the roles and responsibilities are, what the skills and knowledge gaps and capabilities are, and then what are going to be the best tools and processes and workflows that are going to allow you to get your project operated and done and functioning very effectively. And so that becomes part of the overall charter for the initiative. Number 8 is going to be— we've talked about in the challenges and in what you could be doing as an influential leader. We talked about needing to get processes or what would you call it? Acumen around accountability, decision-making, conflict resolution. So as you've been working, you know, identifying what are those conflicts that could come up, what are those accountabilities that are going to come up, what are the type of decisions or risks that we're going to need to address, well, then you can kind of come up with a method for, you know, for handling those things. What is the process going to be? To handle conflicts or to make critical decisions or to hold somebody accountable, you know, and therefore what is that chain of communication, chain of decision-making, chain of command as far as how those things are being addressed. You want to ensure you're addressing conflict issues, things that need to be mitigated, you know, quickly. Because even if it's a conflict amongst the team, team member or two, that needs to get addressed before it sabotages the rest of the team. If it's conflict about the approach that you're taking versus however somebody else should be taking, that's going to affect the entire team. And you need to make sure that that's getting addressed. If there's certain dependencies that you have to groups within the team or even outside the team that are not necessarily stepping up and accommodating the schedule and the priorities that you have, that needs to get addressed as quickly as possible. Conflicts can come in so many different forms. You need to ensure you have a process and a method for identifying them and addressing them and moving on from them as quickly as possible, or it could completely, uh, cause your project to implode. All right, and then lastly would be, obviously you want to as you're going, you want to be tracking and reporting and assessing and adjusting whatever, you know, strategies or processes or workflows you've put into place. Are they working for you or against you? Are they allowing you to speed up and help get everyone more productive and more effective in what they're doing, or is it causing them to slow down? And, you know, there's a lot of roadblocks and loopholes that were put into place. You, you want to, or you assign to a team member, you want to be ensuring that you have a process for monitoring, tracking, reporting, assessing, and then making adjustments. And lastly, and I should add this, and I think I will, as you know, number 10, and then I'll walk through and repeat what those 10 were. I would even say you need to, as a strategy, work on being extremely open and extremely flexible in acknowledging that things are, you know, what things are going right, but what things are being challenged or holding you back or being difficult for yourself or for the team. So you can go and make those adjustments. So you as a leader, definitely need to not be kind of stuck in the original decisions, the original actions, the original changes you put into place. You need to be agile and flexible and nimble in recognizing that something may not be working, or someone else has a better idea, or there's a better system or process or tool out there. And you make those adjustments freely for the best of the, of the team, best of the project, and best of the business. So let me walk through those 10 strategies highlighting the overarching, and so you can make note of them. So number 1 would be establish those clear goals and objectives. Number 2, standardize your communication/plan. 3 would be ensure you're facilitating regular meetings, touch bases, statuses, feedback to ensure the team feels supported. Number 4 would be create that org chart, your team chart. Define the roles and responsibilities of the team that you need to be forming and/or have formed to ensure that you know what it is you need or you, you know, don't need. Number 5 would be ensure you're really encouraging a collaborative, inclusive inclusive, transparent culture. That'll be the, the most transformative and powerful thing that will get you over the finish line in a very successful way. All right, number 6 would be ensure that there's that training. You know, you're bringing cross functions together. You have skill gaps, you have knowledge gaps, ensure that you're providing the necessary training to the team members that need it. So they not only optimize what they're doing, but they can even stretch themselves in whatever it is that you're asking them to do. Number 7 would be identify and lay out that workflow of tools and processes and systems and, you know, reporting structure. So everything is integrated and everything works seamlessly. Amongst the team that has their own, you know, tools and resources and support and processes. And yet you've defined what's going to work best for your particular cross-functional initiative, lay it out, and that's what you're going to be communicating, communicating effectively and consistently. Number 8 would be ensure you have that conflict resolution process nailed down so you're managing them effectively. Actively and proactively. And number 10— I'm sorry, number 9 would be do that monitoring, tracking, reporting, assessing, and adjusting that you need in order to recognize what's working, what's not. But number 10, I added, was swallow that pride and, you know, be nimble and flexible and agile to recognizing what might need to be changed as you go in order to ensure that you're successful, the team's successful, the project is successful, and therefore the business is successful. Implementing these strategies, just like anything else, requires you being very committed, you know, from all— and having the commitment from all levels of the organization, from all functions of the organization, from all the individuals on your team. And allowing, you know, allowing an environment, fostering an environment where that cross-functional collaboration can thrive. And therefore everyone is successful at the end of it. So your job as a cross-functional leader is to really figure out what it's going to take for you to effectively influence the disparity of, of individuals' roles and responsibilities, priorities, and functions. So your project is a 5-star project, and you're a powerhouse influential leader. So we talked about the challenges, we've talked about skills that you need to be an influential leader, and then we walked through 10 strategies you could to be using and implementing even right now, even in your own team, even if it's not cross-functional, in order for you to be a powerhouse leader. But if you're struggling in any way, shape, or form, or you even just want to assess the state of your team or this cross-functional team, then don't hesitate to reach out and book a call with me, and let's talk for 30 minutes. Let me hear, you know, what it is or where it is or how it is, uh, that you're working, and provide you tips and strategies and action plans specific to you and your situation in a very powerful powerhouse conversation. So just go to coachmebernette.com/discoverycall and let's do it. All right, I am so grateful that you are here with us this week, and I'll look for forward to having you right back here. Bye!

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Want to dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffire coaching.com to learn more about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.