Do you prefer to stick within the boundaries of your own professional training? Or are you intentionally professionally cross functional during team and client meetings?
There is no right or wrong response to these two questions. However, your professional trajectory is impacted by your preferred professional operating mode, moving forward. Let’s discuss.
Cross functional leadership opportunities favor individuals who create a professionally cross functional roadmap for themselves.
Consider the story that your current resume tells; also, your curriculum vitae. Are yours homogeneous or diverse? Do you prefer learning, thinking, and creating professional outcomes when you are surrounded by colleagues who solve problems the same way you do? Or, rather, are you open to different approaches to problem-solving and more innovative and creative thinking?
Cross functional leadership is characterized by the ability to translate the strategic value of your solutions across professional disciplines. If this is the route you wish to pursue, start focusing on becoming intentionally professionally cross functional. Create a roadmap aligning and translating the breadth and depth of cross functional experiences as you and your teams create distinctive outcomes for clients and colleagues.
When you are intentionally professionally cross functional, your cross functional opportunities increase both in quality and quantity. Is this the strategy for you, or not?
First, as an intentional cross functional professional, you gradually become known for being curious beyond the limits of your professional discipline. As a result, you dig deeper and ask more insightful questions during meetings. If the colleagues within your own professional discipline are unable to provide answers, you are comfortable and conversant crossing over into other disciplines for answers. (Yes, at first this is a scary thought for you, but not for long.) Over time, not only do you bring greater cross functional insights back to your own department. You also cross pollinate mindsets and skillsets throughout your organization. Plus, you expand your professional network and cross functional resources, future forward.
What is your choice? Are you currently pursuing a more linear career path, focused on a traditional professional career? Is this the pathway for you or are you ready to become intentionally professionally cross functional? If the latter is your choice, contact me here and let’s co-create your professional roadmap, future forward.
Meet people where they are. Get to where you really need to go. Together. | One Millimeter Mindset | Professional Innovation | Cross Functional Leadership | Speaker, Consultant, Mentor |
How do you become more professionally visible, cross-functionally relevant, and strategically valuable to people who solve problems differently than you do? Babette Ten Haken’s One Millimeter Mindset ™ speaking, consulting, and mentoring programs catalyze people to collaborate more innovatively by moving one purpose-driven one millimeter beyond the mindset holding you back from moving forward. Create and implement more strategically agile, enduring, and rewarding outcomes. Babette’s 3 Core Questions, 4 Change Agreements, and 5 Professional Whys catalyze everyone to ask the questions that get everyone to where they really need to go, together. Babette is a business-oriented STEM professional, qualitative Voice of the Customer facilitator, PMI-certified Wicked (Complex) Problem Solver, Duke Corporate Education licensed Strategic Agility practitioner, and Six Sigma Green Belt (Quality). She is a member of SHRM, PMI, and the National Speakers Association (NSA). All programs delivered virtually and/or in-person. Her playbook of cross-functional collaboration, Do YOU Mean Business? is available in digital format on Amazon.com.
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