I won’t attempt to identify all of the techniques that you can use to achieve these results in this space. However, there is one critical technique which is surprisingly underused. Where have major fumbles and fizzles occurred in the past? What hand-offs have resulted in dissatisfaction between or among functions? Which fumbles and fizzles have delayed delivery of a product or service? Which interfaces have detracted from the attainment of team goals and objectives?

Bring your team together and take a little trip down “Memory Lane,” answering the questions posed above. Do a post-mortem on things that have gone wrong in the past and then develop a “watch list” for use by management and staff alike to ensure that they go right in the future. Create an inventory for surveillance and control. Simple? Obvious? Perhaps. However, you might be astonished by the number of organizations that don’t avail themselves of this simple technique for making their matrix teams work more smoothly; your organization may be among their number.

Try it. You’ll like it.

We monitor the Google Alerts for matrix management and, from time to time, note various blogs which deprecate matrix management on the basis of bad experiences that people have had with it—as if no one has had bad experiences with other forms of organizational structure!

At Strategic Futures, we never try to “sell” anyone on the need to shift to matrix management. This is a conclusion that an organization’s leadership must reach on its own when its traditional hierarchical structure has run out of breath. Once leadership has concluded that matrix management makes sense for its purposes, we are here to help.

That said, we can’t help but smile when we see various old wines repackaged in new bottles. The flawed logic usually goes something like this:

1. There was a bad experience with matrix management.
2. I had a bad experience, ergo everyone had the same experience,
3. Therefore, matrix management is fundamentally flawed.

Management of any sort is defined as the art of getting work done through other people in a manner which satisfies established standards of efficiency and effectiveness. More colloquially, management is more about steering than it is about rowing. That’s not to say that today’s managers shouldn’t be “working managers,” meaning that they themselves must be personally productive even as they harness the talents and energies of others to accomplish objectives. On the other hand, if management fails to observe certain key principles, then any structure will surely fail. 

For instance, there is nothing intrinsic to matrix management that is inimical to customer-centered focus and action, but it does require putting the customer in the center of your organization. Indeed many matrix organizations use customer-centered teams to get work done on a seamless, cross-functional basis.

There is also nothing intrinsic about matrix management that suggests that you can’t engage the creativity of key contributors across every function represented on a matrix team.

In addition, capable managers in any structure are accountable for accomplishing short-term objectives even as they pursue longer-range development strategies that will build the capabilities of their talent pool. This is a both/and proposition not an either/or ultimatum.

As I have written in this space before, the relative absence of structure engenders more pronounced personality conflicts. Structure in and of itself need not mean suffocation or gridlock. Have the guts and foresight to establish decision protocols as part of the structure and then live by those protocols. Clarify roles, responsibilities and prerogatives as part of the structure. Do these things and then insist on customer-centered thoughts and deeds, aggressive human resource development, and the unleashing of creative energies and your organization will prevail over fantasies about how people can pull together magically, achieving Hollywood-inspired miracles and breakthroughs every time. Come on back to Planet Earth!  Homo sapiens still roam the globe.

If every manager in every organization were a virtuoso who could squeeze every drop of motivation and creativity out of every employee, and do so in a way that uniformly aggrandized the organization rather than the self, we could fantasize about an almost endless spectrum of structural or quasi-anarchic possibilities for organizing people and work. If your organization is flawlessly full of such virtuosos, then you have a brave new world ahead of you that is beyond the reach of us mere mortals. However, if your organization is like most, it is populated by intelligent, hard-working folks who also happen to be human beings, and, alas, with that human dimension, ladies and gentlemen, lies the rub. Indeed, management would be so much easier if it didn’t involve human beings!

Matrix management is a networked approach to getting things done, greatly facilitated by today’s communications and shared-minds technology. However, this networked approach requires use of a tested set of roles, rules, and tools to make it work. When these roles, rules, and tools are not installed nor followed correctly, you can’t expect favorable results.

False contradictions between sound management practice and matrix management are red herrings. The wholesale deprecation of matrix management is the management equivalent of performing delicate surgery with a stone implement. It’s a kind of all-or-nothing grandiosity based on oversimplification, often accompanied by a veiled invitation to return to the 1990s fashion of self-directed teams which didn’t achieve widespread success. We can fine tune a matrix organization and improve its performance. However, attempts to fine tune anarchy or some other kids-in-the-schoolyard caprice is a fool’s errand. When you see animosity towards matrix management in print, read between the lines!

For clarity on matrix management organization and its implementation, please call us, 703/836-8383 or email us at info@strategicfutures.com

In the matrix organization, personality issues hemorrhage in to fill gaps created by structural ambiguities.  This also happens in traditional hierarchical structures, but that is not our focus here. One of Strategic Futures matrix management success factors is role clarity. To the extent that defined roles in your matrix organization are unclear, you will create a fertile breeding ground for personality-based clashes. These rifts can do lasting damage to relationships that are needed for a shared-fate culture where shared objectives are pursued using shared resources. Personality clashes that would have rarely if ever been ignited become needlessly incendiary because of role ambiguity.

In the past quarter, I have worked with two clients in the same sophisticated industry – an industry which will remain unnamed. Both of these organizations have suffered intensifying personality clashes among senior leaders. In one instance, the roles were well-defined at the time of matrix management implementation, but have been allowed to drift. In the other instance, the roles were not clearly defined at the outset and ensuing disagreements with accompanying personality flare-ups have occurred.

While it is true that personality clashes can and will occur among strong executives even when structure has been well-defined with accompanying role clarity, matters are exacerbated when the strict lines dividing horizontal and vertical authority and responsibilities have been allowed to blur or otherwise to become intertwined.

To avoid reaching the “point of no return” on personality clashes within the organization, it is best to ensure that roles and prerogatives are defined clearly and then enforced strictly by top leadership. The absence of fundamental clarity creates a dysfunctional breeding ground for such conflict.  The dynamic that gets unleashed by role ambiguity is straightforward: When there is doubt about who has the authority to do what, ego enters the fray and personality variables that would otherwise be suppressed or otherwise unexpressed are unleashed.  The result is destructive tension rather than the constructive tension that we seek through the matrix structure.

With this said, the existence of such conflicts should not be cause for utter despair. One of my earliest matrix management consulting assignments involved such a conflict. The Chief Scientific Officer here in the US was sending “ricochet shots” intended to deprecate his US Chief Operating Officer via company headquarters personnel located in Europe. Understandably, there were hard feelings between the CSO and the COO. The differences between the “business” personality and the “science” personality were inflamed. Each held a hard-bitten, passionate viewpoint that was in conflict with the other. The two were on the brink of being unable to work together on anything — for any purpose. However, with a new agreement that clarified the roles of each and the protocol for consultation with others here in the US and abroad, they were able to work it out for the good of the company and for their own respective careers and comfort levels. Role clarity made for a happy ending to a story that could have ended disastrously for the parties and for the company.

Bottom line? There is plenty of good that can be done by human relations consultants who are focused on improving and repairing damaged interpersonal relationships. On the other hand, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Ensure role clarity at the outset and maintain it throughout and you will avoid the exacerbation of mis-fitting personalities. There are times when a Chief Executive needs to resort eclectically to Darwinian Management whereby the “survival of the fittest” is an appropriate contest. However, Darwinian “survival of the fittest” scenarios are best reserved for extraordinary use: Role clarity is the best antidote for abating conflicts that never needed to happen in the first place and, in the end, added absolutely no value or special insights, only distress and lost productivity.

If you need help with role clarity or standing up your matrix management organization, please call us, 703/836-8383 or email us at info@strategicfutures.com.

Over the past 14 months or so, I have had occasion to do work with an African multinational nonprofit that specializes in agricultural development.  Our work has focused on the development and implementation of cross-functional country-based teams: Use of matrix management is creating a more agile, muscular, and scalable organization that is positioning itself to do work in additional countries with the benefit of funding drawn from philanthropies located around the world.

In addition, my monitoring of matrix management feeds from Google and elsewhere indicates that more African professional job postings are seeking professionals with experience working in matrix organizations.

All of this is a way of saying that Africa is modernizing in many respects, including management practice. I have visited Nairobi, Kenya; Accra and Cape Coast, Ghana; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia over the past year or so. There is new construction occurring in all of these areas, particularly Addis and Nairobi. There are new non-stop flights to more African cities being added by multiple airlines month after month. 

I had not been to Africa before work with this particular client.  I have been fascinated by the number of Asians – particularly young 20- and 30-something Asians that I see at African hotels that cater to business travelers. The personal and professional opportunities that are presented by the African continent are not lost on our friends from the Pacific Rim. Although anecdotal and unscientific, the spirit of change in Africa is palpable. There is an electric excitement in the air. One senses that a tipping point has been reached.

Yes, the poverty is widespread and overwhelming. There is so much to do.  Roads are terrible, often nearly impassable. Health conditions are appalling. Yet, the possibilities are endless and, again, the energy is positive and strong. Even more than that, the people are warm and deep. The people with whom I have been dealing are well-educated, as well as sophisticated and multi-lingual, speaking languages such as Japanese and Russian.

The music, dance, art, and history you encounter are complex and wonderful.  I have been both professionally and personally enriched by my travels there.  While the journey is long and tough on the posterior, the rewards far exceed any inconvenience.  It is so exciting that I can’t help but recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning, growth, and pure enjoyment.

Why are more organizations choosing matrix management? The answer that we are hearing most frequently relates to scalability. Often, the objective is to add new locations that are functioning as intact horizontal matrix teams. Sometimes the objective is to be able to scale up and add new projects.

These organizations want to be able to expand their operations without having to do a new restructuring every time that they increase the number of locations, number of projects, or other indices of growth. 

The good news about matrix management is that it allows such modifications without having to alter the structure or add considerable overhead as part of the expansion process. Most of the time, new locations or new programs can be added without any adjustments to the vertical organization.

As an organization moves to matrix management—prior to an expansion of locations, projects, or other dimensions—employees cannot reasonably be expected to understand immediately the need for the structural shift.  Until expansion has actually occurred, they may instead perceive the move to matrix management as an addition to overhead or superstructure. It is important to explain to employees the benefits sought from the move to matrix management and to offer this explanation plainly and repeatedly. Don’t assume that because you understand the reasoning for the structural change that anyone else will.

Also, don’t assume that explaining it once or twice will do the trick. It won’t.  Many employees will adopt the Missouri “Show Me” attitude and won’t understand the motives behind the move to matrix management until real expansion has actually been executed.  Thereafter, the reason for the change will have been clear to them all along! 

In summary, a key advantage of the matrix structure is that you are able to “snap on” a new horizontal team or any number of teams; up to a point; train up the team members; and then go “live” immediately. 

More and more, scalability is what our clients are seeking when turning to the matrix structure.  While there are other significant benefits of the matrix structure such as maximizing resource utilization, solving complex problems, achieving a flatter organization, and achieving cross-functional synergy, the advantage of scalability is driving many decisionmakers to opt for matrix management.

If you need consulting or training help with your transition to matrix management, please call us, 703/836-8383 or email us at info@strategicfutures.com.

Matrix management-related developments are monitored closely here at Strategic Futures. One good source of information is Google Alerts, a resource one can access and subscribe to on www.google.com. Google Alert–Matrix Management is increasingly displaying job vacancies where the applicant is expected to have experience managing or working in a matrix environment.

Indeed, we can’t help but observe that more and more companies are moving to matrix management. There are significant employment and promotional opportunities available to those who can represent fairly that they are ready, willing, and able to work in a matrix structure.

A jobseeker or someone looking for career advancement may have the requisite technical skills for a job vacancy but may lament that s/he doesn’t possess extensive matrix management experience–or perhaps none at all. What to do?

First, let’s consider that you may well have relevant experience and not know that you do. Have you worked on a cross-functional team where you were collaborating with people drawn from disciplines other than your own? This may have been in pursuit of a specific goal, performance of a specific project, or the satisfaction of a particular customer’s requirements. If so, you are part of the way there.  Have you worked successfully on multiple projects at once?  If so, this is something to emphasize!

Cross-functional collaboration is at the heart of any well-designed and managed matrix organization. Seeking out the productivity- and profit-building synergies that are expected from such collaboration is the strategic companion to the matrix structure. If you are able to talk about your contributions to results achieved from such cross-functional effort, you already have your foot in the door.

On the other hand and as you might expect, there’s more to it than that. When multiple cross-functional teams pursue shared objectives using shared resources, things get a bit more complicated and your ability to work through and with these complications is what the employer is seeking. There are specific roles that are played by participants in the matrix structure. There are also rules and tools that you need to know.

One way to get over this employment screening hurdle is to indicate that you have worked on cross-functional teams (if you have) and/or on multiple projects at once, and also to indicate that you have familiarized yourself with the structure and dynamics of a matrix organization by reading pertinent literature. You might want to order one or two of our booklets, namely Life in the Matrix and also Matrix Stations. Better yet, you may want to order my book, Matrix Management Success: Method Not Magic. Chances are if you read the booklets and/or the book as well as reviewing the articles in our Library such as Matrix Management: Method, Not Magic and our matrix management blogs, you’ll know as much as the person who is reviewing your resume and interviewing you. Indeed, if you read the book, odds are you’ll be more knowledgeable about matrix management than the person who is scrutinizing your application for employment.

Good luck in your quest!

Cross-functional teams operating in a matrix-managed environment can deliver enormous synergy across participating disciplines which results in many significant benefits. This is true not only in R&D organizations but also in a wider, more diverse set of enterprises, such as engineering and construction management, government and more.

Benefits resulting from achieving valuable synergy include but are not limited to:

1. Greater efficiency and productivity. Essentially there are golden possibilities for eliminating rework because each discipline learns to anticipate the needs and preferences of another discipline for the work that is being delivered to the other
2. Discovery Breakthroughs. Much of what constitutes “discovery” in almost any field of endeavor represents a reconfiguration of components that existed previously but had not been assembled together in a particular way. When disciplines have the opportunity to mix and match their work products together in novel ways, discovery breakthroughs can result. The hastening of such breakthroughs is best accomplished by those who are closest to the work, laboring together in a cross-functional team setting.
3. Widening of Comfort Zones. When members of different disciplines work closely together, organizational defense mechanisms are disarmed as trust builds. This widens comfort zones and builds esprit de corps—esprit de corps that has immediately usefulness, but which also expands future agility.  Experienced team members who have participated previously in cross-functional efforts that have shattered barriers can be reconfigured for new projects or purposes with learning curves that are less steep. These team members will also evidence diminished resistance to change as new teams go through the stages of team development, e.g., form-storm- norm-perform.

In addition to lateral, cross-functional benefits, there are also important benefits for each of the participating vertical functions. One of these benefits is what I call “disease control,” meaning that a functional problem that is being evidenced on one cross-functional team may also be apparent on one or more other functional teams. Early knowledge of such problems permits the function to either fix or prevent the difficulty systemwide. Another benefit relates to priority-setting, where a helicopter view of all matrix teams’ needs for the services of a particular function permits proper allocation of available resources. This helicopter view also permits the discipline to identify and develop its future capabilities consistent with a clear-eyed view of emerging needs and team preferences.

Synergy is golden and the employee with a synergistic mindset is more valuable than an employee who lacks synergistic skills and behaviors. Success in mining for gold presupposes that you know where to look. This blog entry isn’t the full “treasure map” but I hope that it sends you off towards True North.

What about the "dual-hatted role" in a matrix organization? This is a situation where a professional is assigned both vertical leadership as well as horizontal leadership responsibilities.

Short answer, bad idea.

It may be used on a very brief and temporary basis because of a talent shortage provided that thorough justification has been provided. In those instances where a dual-hatted role is approved for temporary use, it must be with the provision that another individual will be cultivated quickly to assume one of the two roles. Exceptions could be a short-term project, a truly extraordinary financial or geographic constraint, or a discipline specialty so rare that it would be folly to invest in developing bench strength in that particular functional subspecialty.

Why does all this matter?

1. Potential confusion. Staff and management get confused about the exact role that the dual-hatted individual playing: Is s/he making a decision based on project or goal imperatives or on the basis of functional perspective? In extreme cases, this can escalate into staff confusion about whether the company is serious about implementing matrix management or whether it is reverting to its old pre-matrix ways.
2. Dilution of synergy. Project Managers need to maximize synergy among functions to execute the project. Gaining and exercising a multi-disciplinary perspective is critical to success, but if we embed the Project Manager further into his/her native discipline in the dual-hatted capacity; we weaken cultivation of a seamless, synergistic project management viewpoint.
3. Fear of loss of status. One source of resistance to matrix management is the sensation of a loss of status, power, and control to which some managers may cling. They once made all decisions—horizontal and vertical—relative to their work and employees. Now they must collaborate and consult with others. This is real change; it takes them out of their legacy comfort zones. Some will seek escape routes wherever they can find or invent them. These managers are actually gaining power in the matrix organization but it takes a while for them to figure that out. Top management enforcement of new matrix roles is critical to reaching the tipping point of real change and releasing the real power of the modern matrix organization.

Even worse, the dual-hatted role can sometimes degenerate into a proposition where some individuals are granted special license to live by the roles and rules of the pre-matrix organization, to some extent exempt from the overarching matrix proposition of "pursuing shared objectives using shared resources."  If such arrangements catch fire, you can bet real money that the impetus to get designated as a "dual-hatted" player will snowball as a new indices of status and power.  Next thing you know., you’ll have more and more people clamoring to return to the comfortable roles and patterns of the pre-matrix past, traveling under the canopy of the dual-hatted role.  If enough of this happens, you’ll be left dealing with the unfortunate question of "when is a matrix not a matrix?" or otherwise finding yourself agreeing with the French that "the more things change, the more they remain the same."

Bottom line, avoid the "dual-hatted role" at all costs.  It’s nothing but trouble.

By pausing and investigating the underpinnings of success, both process and human, senior leadership can distribute credit in a way that fortifies the matrix structure by creating conditions favorable to teamwork—past, present, and future.

The matrix organization is comprised of multiple cross-functional teams. The team is the basic building block of the structure. At any given point in time, the behavior of all personnel will either fortify or erode the matrix structure. At the highest level of matrix functioning, all personnel will become appropriately circumspect about whether their behavior is fortifying or eroding the matrix.

Absolutely essential to matrix functioning is an adequate degree of circumspection at the most senior levels of the organization. All members of an organization like to be the one to deliver good news to senior leadership. However, the first “messenger” to trumpet success to a top-level boss may or may not have been instrumental in achieving a given success. Sharp elbows might be indicative of a sharp mind and Herculean effort; sometimes this is the case but sometimes it is not.

When good news is reported to a senior leader, this individual should immediately pause and ask two questions namely, “To what can we attribute our success?” and “To whom can we attribute our success?”

In answer to the first question, the challenge is to identify those cross-functional synergies that were pivotal in achieving a breakthrough.

In answer to the second question, the challenge is to ensure that credit for the success is distributed to and shared among the members of the team which delivered it. The Horizontal Leader and the participating Vertical Leaders are likely to have insights as to any creative, or otherwise disproportional or heroic contributions that should be singled out for special commendation. Most frequently, a small amount of digging will reveal any special achievements that warrant special notice. The heroic contributors are often too busy to sound their own horn. Following this analogy, don’t assume that a vehicle is moving just because it has honked its horn. In addition, it can also be argued that the efforts of each and every team member were required to create an incubator in which synergistic, cross-functional success could be attained. In this sense, senior leadership should distribute both generic as well as particular credit, should particular credit be warranted.

Interdependency is at the root of creative synergy. When it comes to the behavior of senior leadership, little things can and do mean a lot. When senior leadership ensures that both team and individual efforts are recognized and rewarded, the matrix structure is fortified in ways that will reinforce future synergy. The cumulative effects of senior leadership impact the significant benefits which an ever-strengthening matrix culture can deliver.

Remember the operational definition of “culture:” Culture is what employees do when the boss isn’t looking. To the extent that employees perceive and understand that effective teamwork is what will be inspected and rewarded by senior leadership without fail, their behavior will tilt increasingly in the direction of cooperative interdependency. In this way the promised benefits of matrix management can be delivered through multiple cross-functional teams pursuing shared objectives using shared resources.

Matrix teams can be especially useful as part of a renewal initiative. For a couple of decades, the mantra in organizations has been “we need to break down the silos,” but such renewal initiatives too rarely get past the chanting stage. Matrix teams are cross-functional teams which pursue shared objectives using shared resources. Such teams break down the silos by placing staff drawn from different disciplines shoulder-to-shoulder, either physically and/or virtually, with one another to pursue a common objective.

A constant theme throughout my book, Matrix Management Success: Method Not Magic, is that today’s organizational problems are complex and daunting. The problems are multidisciplinary in nature and multidisciplinary approaches are essential to meeting the challenge—not just at the top of the organization, but also at the middle and at the front-line level.

We would still be waiting for many of the beneficial drugs that make life better today were it not for the use of multi-disciplinary drug development teams by global pharmaceutical companies Beyond the pharmaceutical companies, many other household-name organizations use matrix teams to achieve important benefits, including companies such as ExxonMobil, Boeing, and Parsons Engineering.

Public sector organizations are also using matrix teams to great advantage, including the US Navy Bureau of Medicine, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Food and Drug Administration Center for Radiological Devices, and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, to name a few. There are some emerging examples of both private and public sector organizations which are linking their matrix teams to the matrix teams of other strategic partners; this is the next frontier in creating breakthrough global networks of organizations that don’t just cooperate on paper, but which also collaborate day-to-day at the working level to get work done. It’s another way to make renewal a viral phenomenon.

Many traditional, vertical hierarchies are simply out of breath as they grapple with multidisciplinary challenges. Vertical organizations are structured perfectly to solve one-dimensional problems but the bad news is that virtually all of the one-dimensional problems in the modern world have already been solved! Squeezing traditional hierarchies harder is not the pathway to progress; you may increase your engine speed RPM, with accompanying employee fatigue and burnout, but the squeeze doesn’t increase your ground speed, to use an automotive analogy. Such approaches lead to head scratching: “How can our employees work so hard and such long days and make so little progress?”

It’s time for organizational structures to catch up to reality. Catching up to reality is one way to describe necessary renewal. Unleashing the power of the horizontal organization using cross-functional matrix teams is a proven way to renew your organization by releasing talent to conquer complexity, increasing speed and agility while ensuring the highest-and-best use of all of your assets.

Cross-functional teams have been around for more than sixty years, but recent improvements in communications and information technology along with increases in employee education and sophistication levels have fueled its wider use. It takes care and due diligence to make them work, but when they work well they are powerhouses of innovation and productivity and a vital pathway to organizational renewal.