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You Need Cross-functional
Excellence for: |
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Cross-Functional Technology
Managers |
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are skilled technologists
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value the contribution from other
functions
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play an active role integrating these
functions during the innovation process
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Why You Need Cross-functional Excellence?
Although innovation is driven by technology,
required competence extends beyond technical know-how. In the
new knowledge economy and
knowledge-based enterprises, systemic innovative solutions arise from
complex interactions between many individuals, organizations and
environmental factors. The boundaries between products and services fade rapidly
too. If you wish to be a market leader today, you must be able to
integrate in a balanced way different types of know-how that would transform
stand-alone technologies, products and services into a seamless, value-rich
solution.
Cross-functional Excellence for Leading
Organizations
We all start our carriers as specialists - men
and women with narrow corridors of functional expertise. The goal of
specialists is to optimize individual effort. Technologists want to design
the best products. Salespeople want to develop the most effective marketing
strategies... and on and on. But "to raise to the ranks of senior
management, you must forgo this quest for personal perfection, seeking
instead to balance the skills and capabilities of the specialists working
for you1". You need to apply the
balanced business systems approach and consider your business as system
of interrelated factors of strategy, owners, investors, management, workers,
finance, processes, products, suppliers, customers, and competitors.
Strategic Cross-functional Management
Strategic cross-functional management is central to capitalizing on
functional excellence, and in order for functional specialists to make the
greatest possible contribution, they must take a broader view of their
functions and understand how they fit into the web of the organizational
processes and, ultimately, into the overall
strategy...
More
Cross-functional Excellence for Driving
Radical Innovation
"Here is the paradox: You need a great team of
people with diverse skills to perform a symphony well, but no team has ever
written a great symphony!3".
While cross-functional team are key players in
defining and implementing incremental innovation projects, cross-functional
disruptive individuals tend to be key players in defining radical innovation projects.
Individuals who are likely to excel in a
radical innovation project, besides
having superior technical capabilities, should be goal-oriented, broadly
educated, creative, extremely bright, not afraid to be different,
integrative, flexible, passionate, entrepreneurial, aggressive, eager to
learn business, able to take risks, and inquisitive3.
Cross-functional Excellence for Managing
Technology
In the new era of
systemic innovation,
cross-functional technology managers are in high demand. In the Silicon
Valley, for instance, many companies found that when they moved to a flatter
organization, they had plenty of top-flight technologists but too few
technology managers. "These managers are skilled technologists who also
value the contribution from other functions, and who play an active role
integrating these functions during the innovation process2".
Cross-functional Excellence for Managing
Knowledge
The explosion of knowledge growth, combined with
its rapid distribution, makes it difficult to stay on top of the available
knowledge in any industry. Thus, a
global knowledge economy rewards not only creators of new knowledge but
also those who can identify and integrate knowledge effectively2.
Case in Point: Nurturing Cross-Functional
Experts at Hewlett-Packard
Most companies tend to recruit, train and
promote people within functional corridors. But Hewlett-Packard (HP) breaks
the walls, creating a carrier network that begins with the recruitment of
diverse people in terms of their skills and personality and then promotes
horizontally, as well as vertically throughout the company. "Typically, HP
employees move through four to six functional areas in the course of their
carriers. This creates broad knowledge of the company and fosters the kind
of teamwork other companies covet1". When it comes time to
promote, managers don't look who is next down the carrier line, they look
for the best people. Neither employees should follow a pre-defined path to a
particular post, nor need they to get a bigger title to be given new
responsibility.
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