Finding internal team resources is key to successful execution of strategy.
Internal team resources diversify membership in your sales team, engineering team, IT (information technology) team, you-name-it. Create more enduring business outcomes and solutions for your customers.
This strategy is easier said than done. Your first instinct is to “widen” your cache of internal team resources by seeking out folks from other departments whose mindset is closest to your own. If you are in sales, you turn your gaze to marketing. And if you are in engineering it is logical to consider IT folks as adjuncts.
While this tactic widens your team bandwidth a blip or two, consider what type of internal team resources would confer a strategic advantage to your team, over time.
Then move one millimeter outside your comfort zone. First, internal team resources which are key to finding excellence in execution of strategy are not necessarily the guys and gals in the next department over.
Next, consider cross-discipline collaboration with those folks. Then, find people who do not speak the same professional language as you do. These are professionals who do not hear and interpret words the same way that you do.
Also, the key to achieving continuous excellence in the execution of strategy is cross-pollinating your team with people you don’t normally associate with. Except when your team is in crisis.
When you have the folks who get your team out of messes as members of your permanent team, you all are on your way to some innovative outcomes for your customers.
Most of the time, you are in the habit pulling these folks off the shelf for fixes (and putting them back on the shelf as quickly as you can). Consider including them in an ongoing basis as part of your team.
No one said that implementing this strategy is going to be easy. Especially since everyone tends to instinctively “stick with their own kind.” Then there are your organization’s corporate silos, which sequester everyone to “work with their own kind.”
When you cross-pollinate your team with these type of internal team resources, your team gets stronger. You all learn more, together. You question each other’s logic. You push back and validate ideas. You all pull together.
My advice: Think about which internal team resources would be key to making your team more successful this quarter, this year, next year. Then talk with them. Yes, talk with them.
Your conversation may start off awkwardly. Find a common ground for your conversations. You and your team will never look back.
That’s the start of solid collaboration, don’t you think?
Planning your next team, corporate or association meeting? Searching for a one-on-one catalyst to get you unstuck? Engage me to present a One Millimeter Mindset ™ program! Delivered virtually or in-person. Contact me here.
Babette Ten Haken | Change Catalyst | Purpose-Driven Professional Innovation | Cross-Functional Team Leadership | Trust-Based Client Retention | In Person & Virtual Speaker, Consultant, Coach, Author |
Babette Ten Haken is a refreshingly extroverted STEM professional and skeptical thinker focused on intentional innovation. She helps people, teams and organizations make hard calls when designing products, services, careers and cultures. These are not easy conversations to have. Her ability to translate cross-functional conversations between left-brain and right-brain thinkers provides different pathways for behavior, response, insight and collaboration. Think of the strategic business and human capital value of moving beyond avoidance or group-think, together. Instead, let your creativity, critical thinking, and leadership skills co-develop together, one millimeter at a time. Her playbook of cross-functional collaboration, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Contact Babette here.
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