领导矩阵管理
文章一
What if you upgraded your IT network to a new operating system that promised faster, better and leaner results — only to find that the vast majority of your leaders did not have the necessary competencies to use that new system?
At Hay Group, our research suggests that many companies are now stuck in that metaphorical boat. Determined to get closer to their customers and become more agile and innovative, global organizations like IBM and GE are embracing the matrix organizational model. But, the transition to this new model has not been all smooth sailing. In matrix organizations, leaders suddenly find themselves having to master the challenges of managing cross-divisional, international teams over whom they have little formal authority. Not surprisingly, the skills required to effectively navigate the matrix are different than those needed to succeed in the old, hierarchical organizational model. Leaders who lack these skills often find these roles frustrating or draining, as they have to continually influence and work through others to get things done.
To uncover the competencies required to achieve results within the matrix, we conducted interviews with dozens of leaders from around the world who were accountable for results but did not have formal authority over the resources needed to achieve those results, which is a fairly common matrix scenario. We compared scenarios where leaders successfully delivered business results to those where leaders were less successful. We found that when leaders were successful in matrix roles they consistently used the following four competencies: empathy, conflict management, influence and self-awareness.
Influence and conflict management capabilities help leaders to build consensus around a common purpose and deliver the collaborative solutions that the matrix requires. Empathy, on the other hand, enables leaders to develop a better understanding of their counterparts’ perspectives and their customers’ mindset. Self-awareness allows leaders to summon the patience to manage the complexities of the matrix.
However, knowing the skills that are required is not enough. The challenge organizations now face is finding leaders who have them. According to our Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI), an emotional intelligence database based on more than 17,000 individuals worldwide, these capabilities are in short supply.
Just how scarce are matrix-related leadership skills? An analysis of our ESCI database found that only 9% of employees consistently demonstrated self-awareness — an essential competency for succeeding in the matrix. Empathy (22%) and influence skills (20%) were also seen as a strength among only a small percentage of leaders, and conflict management, while more common, was only prevalent among less than one-third (31%) of the individuals in our database.
How can organizations get a handle on this problem and strengthen their processes for developing leaders who are well-equipped for the matrix?
1. Ensure that teams are more diverse. Diversity can play an important role in helping people to develop matrix-related competencies, such as the ability to listen with respect to different viewpoints.
2. Create enterprise-level training programs. Give young leaders a chance to shadow top-level executives. Even if the trainees only get a chance to carry the CEO’s briefcase, they will still gain an enterprise-wide perspective while getting invaluable exposure to a selection of business leaders from throughout the company.
3. Implement rotational assignments. Give high-potential rising stars opportunities to work in different functional areas of the company. A leader who spends his or her career stuck in a single function or business unit will have an insular perspective that is a poor fit with the needs and challenges of the matrix.
4. Facilitate different types of leadership experiences. Give mid-level leaders a chance to take on advisory roles outside of line management in functions such as strategy, HR or finance. By playing the role of project manager in a situation where they have little direct authority over their team members, they can gain valuable experience learning how to get results in a matrix-type environment.
Meanwhile, for leaders accustomed to the old hierarchical order who now find themselves at sea in the matrix with little guidance on how to survive, here are four quick tips to minimize the likelihood of capsizing:
• Identify competency gaps and correct them. Empathy, conflict management, influence and self-awareness are all capabilities that can be improved with coaching, training and lots of practice. If you suspect you need help in one or more of these areas, take a proactive approach and start looking for ways to develop and sharpen these skills. And don’t be afraid to ask for feedback on where you may have gaps.
• Don’t try to use hierarchy or pull rank to resolve an issue. That may work in command-and-control line organizations, but it’s less effective in a matrix where you have less formal authority over your team members, some of whom may be peers.
• Resist the urge to escalate problems to senior management. Matrix teams depend on trust and teamwork. Our research shows that escalating issues to the CEO often backfires and can doom matrix projects. Instead, look for ways to use empathetic listening and conflict management resolution skills to show team members how the enterprise-wide goals of the matrix ultimately align with their own interests.
• Deal with emotionally-charged communications face-to-face, never through email. It’s been said before, but it bears repeating — email and text messaging lack nuance and can often be misinterpreted in the worst possible way, destroying the trust upon which matrix teams depend. Pick up the phone, walk down the hall or boot up Skype for a face-to-face dialogue. Trying to express empathy through an emoticon smiley-face is just asking for trouble.
The skills needed for a leader to thrive in a matrix operating environment — empathy, conflict management, influence and self-awareness — can be identified, developed and honed. The real question is whether organizations and individual leaders will take the initiative to broaden their traditional notions of what it takes to succeed as a leader and start taking a closer look at measuring, cultivating and rewarding these crucial matrix-related leadership capabilities.
文章二
While mentoring a new software engineering leader, they asked me this question, “How do you lead people who work on different projects?” They expanded the question by asking, “How do I know if they are doing a good job if I don’t have visibility into their work?” Digging in a bit more with some probing questions, I uncovered the root of their problem, how do they lead a team more effectively within a Matrix Organization?
A leader will often experience two riddles in their leadership journey when it relates to organizational design. The first riddle is the one this leader is experiencing: how do they do a good job leading people who focus on multiple areas, a matrix-style organization. The second riddle is how do you lead a cross-functional team when you may have little to no experience in some of the team’s role? A leader will more than likely experience both of these riddles in their career, and it’s the first we’re focused on today, how to lead more effectively in a matrix-style Organization.
First, let’s define a Matrix Organization.
What is a Matrix Organization?
Note, this is an oversimplification with many assumptions, and its intent is for illustration purposes.
Let’s define a Matrix Organization as a company with team members who report to a functional team but spend most of their time working with a cross-functional group, not necessarily their reporting org. Here’s an illustration of what that might look like.
Let’s look at Erica, the Team Leader of Web Software Engineering. Amy, Brad, and Kelly all report to Erica and are a part of this team focused on building their products’ front-ends. Amy spends most of her time working on the external web product. Brad spends most of his time focused on the mobile app, and Kelly spends most of her time focused on the internal team member experience. The other leaders, Norma and Russel, lead their teams in the same way, matrixed into the products they support. All three leaders have the same riddle. How do they lead their team effectively when they can’t be in three places at once?
Should the teams be “matrixed” in the first place?
If you are thinking to yourself, don’t do this in the first place, create a cross-functional organization instead, I don’t disagree, but that’s not the goal of this article. We are not here to debate what the correct model is for a team and organization. Companies have valid reasons to implement Matrix Organizations, cross-functional organizations, or hybrid models.
Here’s a thoughtful post outlining these organizational design problems by
focused on the riddle of organizing products vs capabilities.
What are some riddles Matrix-Leaders might encounter?
Whether it’s Erica, Norma, Russel, or someone else like the team leader I’m mentoring, being a leader of a matrix-led team comes with some complexities. These are some of the questions this new team leader asked me because they were unsure how to lead their team members when they are not directly involved in their work.
- How do you stay close enough to their work to know where they can improve or their strengths?
- How do you grow and develop someone when you are not close to their work?
- What does a leader do if they are not involved in distributing the work to team members?
- How do you create a team environment where the team spends most of their time with their product group.
Rather than answer each question directly, three practices can help leaders in a Matrix Organization handle these riddles.
First, a leader in a Matrix Organization should still spend time where their team is.
Meaning, we should invest time attending the meetings our team members attend. An example I used with this mentee is attending team ceremonies their team members attend. Examples might be stand-ups, retros, and show and tells. This practice will help the leader observe their team in-action and see how they interact with their cross-functional group. As a leader, you’ll get a sense of what your team member experiences, and you’ll be able to connect more strongly with them. The side-effect of this practice is that you are signing up for a lot more meetings. I’m not suggesting we attend all of their meetings, but zero shouldn’t be an option, either.
Second, we need multiple forms of information flowing to us.
The first form of information comes from one on ones with our team members. Regular time with them becomes more critical because we spend less time with them in execution. Another form of feedback-flow you can create is through peer or partner feedback. A leader can solicit this feedback in many ways. It can come in the form of casual conversation where you ask someone in the cross-functional group how a particular team member is doing. It can be formalized by using a performance feedback survey. You might also have tools that can give you insights into activity, behavior, and communication.
A simple example is a team chat room. A matrix-org leader might want to subscribe to the channels their team is active in to observe and see if there are ways they can help the team member. A Software Engineering Leader might use GitHub activity to help them gain knowledge through a tool the team uses. The goal is to have multiple streams of information flowing so a leader can develop a holistic view when they are not in the weeds with a team member’s execution.
The third practice is easier said than done, and that’s to create a team-led community of practice with high peer-to-peer accountability.
Now, this is an objective any team would benefit from, not just Matrix Organizations. When we create teams that invest in each other and push one another through peer-accountability, the need for us to be closer reduces because the team is leading itself. We shift our focus from leading individuals to creating an environment that leads itself.
Unfortunately, there is no straight line to build a high-accountability, self-led team, but here are some ingredients that can help. To make a self-led team, we need people on the team who care a lot, are capable, and influence others. These might be our Seniors on our team or people who have the “it factor,” but the common thread is that they can get stuff done, and they carry a lot of respect within the team. The next thing we need for a self-led team is that the team members need to own as much of their destiny as possible this way, they are accountable for their decisions. Meaning, as the leader, we should give up control. The last ingredient is that we shift ourselves into a coaching position. We coach the influencers to influence more effectively, and we help the team own its new-earned powers of decision making and accountability. We spend our time bringing the team together to focus on where we cross-over, which is usually our team member’s expectations or the frameworks our teams work within. As leaders of a matrix-team, our conversations shift to the ecosystem instead of the business’s problems that our team members are focused on solving.
Should Functional Matrix-Leaders play a role in work management?
Let’s quickly define work management. By work management, I mean that a leader in this type of organization, a matrix-style company, could play a role in distributing work to their functional team. It’s up to them to decide who gets what task, story, feature, etc. So, should they? Here’s everyone’s favorite answer; it depends. Commonly, a leader in this position will start as a work-router and help identify the right person to do the work from their functional team.
This might solve the riddle of knowing what team members are focused on. Still, it reduces the possibility of achieving a high accountability, self-led team, because it centralizes control to one person. It’s not bad persé, it has consequences, and that’s okay. It’s more critical a leader understand the type of system they are leading within and stay aware of the team’s health through the behaviors and tonality. When we find ourselves stuck using the same methods, we get into trouble because we cannot get out of our way. Maybe we should have a functional leader manage the work intake, but we should continuously question this as we grow and evolve the organization.
Start leading more effectively in a matrix-style organization!
Leadership is challenging regardless of the system’s design. Different models cause different problems to solve. If you find yourself leading a team within a matrix-style company, you’ll run into many of the riddles outlined above. By creating a system that gives you multiple streams of information, being intentional with your time s you go where your team is, and growing your team to be as self-led as possible, matrix-style leadership becomes a little more doable.