The XF Factor.
We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. — Alan Turing
One of the downsides of a constant churn of management fads is that nothing really gets done. Many long-standing issues faced by organizations remain largely intact.
In the meantime, all attention and brainpower go into the intellectual pursuit of ‘the next big thing.’ Until it inevitably fades away and is gradually replaced by a new one. Yet the next big thing is not necessarily a better thing. It turns out it’s easier to make things bigger and more complex than to move in the opposite direction.
A case in point is a universal struggle around the quality of cross-functional understanding and collaboration.
There was much interest in the subject in the late nineties and early noughties, largely through the work of Tom Peters. There was a period when his off-kilter write-up ’50 Ways to Enhance Cross-Functional Effectiveness’ (also dubbed XF-50) was quite popular and frequently shared.
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The write-up is colorful, engaging, and informative — but the language hasn’t aged especially well. It can feel dated or even a little cartoonish now. And with attention spans where they are today, who’s really tackling a list of 50 anymore?
Anyway, XF-50 also faded away. Replaced by much less flamboyant theories: self-directed teams, the Tuckman model (forming-storming-norming-performing), and most recently the Agile craze.
At a purely declarative level, companies and managers eagerly claim to understand the importance of investing in the improvement of cross-functional collaboration. They also see that — with the ever-increasing depth of functional expertise — a constant intervention is needed to make those narrow experts work smoothly together for common good. Especially as we always think everyone else’s job is easier than our own. And the better they do it, the easier it looks.
So, what can be done to improve the ‘XF factor’ in any organization, in the short distance ahead? Another keynote speaker? A shiny new IT communication tool? An unconventional team building exercise? Well, each of these may bring some short-lived excitement or bonding at personal level. Yet the only action that truly weakens functional silos is to systematically reduce the ignorance about what others are doing.
Already Senge in The Fifth Discipline highlights the importance of educating employees on how the company really works. The term he coined — a learning organization — refers exactly to that. The discipline of making employees see how the ‘system’ and its parts operate. For them to understand their interconnectedness.
That’s relatively easy to do. An ounce of understanding yields a ton of respect. A day of job shadowing can undo months of hostility. One does not have to become a jack of all trades or a business polymath. But as Robert Root-Berstein — an expert on polymathy — says, we ‘insist on cooking with only half the necessary ingredients.’
The half we’re familiar with.
