XTeams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate and Execute

Summary from the Front End of Innovation Confernce in Boston, May 2008. 

XTeams are an external route to agility and innovation. In his book, The World is Flat, Tom Friedman described an economy where information flows seamlessly all directions. The result is hypercompetition. Information has leveled the playing field and unleashed innovation. This guarantees that someone will soon be able to do what you do better and faster. The bottom line is adapt or die.
 
Ancona told a story of predators (lions) and prey (gazelles) to illuminate her point about how competition never rests. If you’re the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you start running.

She cited a small village in Columbia which has started selling pottery via internet, and delivering worldwide through FedEX. Success has brought welcome funds to the small community. A growing demand for their products has forced them to shift their thinking….potentially to contract with a company in China to keep up with orders before someone else jumps into the market.  

When BP studied competitors in China, they realized they were not competing with other large oil companies. It was small local producer/distributors that were gaining market share. Understanding their environment taught BP that partnering with locals was the wise strategy to penetrate this market.

An international consortium is planning to build a 200 mpg car for India. This is a team of motivated, passionate people connected to universities worldwide. They will converge on Torino, Italy this summer. This is an example of a new breed of thinkers who work in nimble networks. This type of distributed thinking is a new model for successful organizations. They include impatient people with energy and means to make change. This inverts the traditional top down leadership model. Leaders with the greatest impact will be the ones from the bottom whose access and orientation to information and communication is more immediate and expansive than traditional organizations can grasp.

Nimble networks are examples of XTeams which do not map to traditional org charts. They are engines of change based on trust, diversity, common goals, communication, dedication, fun, passion, commitment.

Organizations that spend millions of dollars training people to be more effective are only half right, which is still ineffective. The existing model creates products which are still late to market and support across the organization. The traditional model focuses inward on how team members get interact. They create walls around the team and between the team and the external environment. It’s a model that works well around a table, but not in a dynamic, connected, flat world.

XTeams are externally oriented, integrating fresh information and experiences into the mix. They connect diverse members from across departmental, cultural and social barriers. They extend to include customers who enhance the perspective and understanding of problems and opportunities.

At Microsoft, when Tammy Savage was assigned an MS Messenger project, she observed that her team didn’t understand the netgen customer. She created a team and began visiting college campuses to observe first hand how individuals and groups use technology. Through photos, interviews, and direct observation they documented the frustrations younger people have with technology.

Netgens blend work and social worlds constantly. Networking, net surfing and social media are all part of their information sphere. Work/social barriers do not exist for them. The Internet is like oxygen. All forms of communication and interaction are integrated. Findings from direct observations of this activity went back to Microsoft to directly impact how new functionality could be incorporated into MS Messenger.

XTeams have an external focus from day one. They work systematically, in-depth and extensively. The primary goals of XTeams include:
1.    Exploring and understanding what’s out there. Teams study the technology landscape, customer need and best practices from the outside. Then, they map external terrain.
2.    Linking up down the organization. The person at top can’t know everything. But, informed teams can assess, align, solve and succeed with buy as projects evolve.
3.    Creating synergy. Teams draw internal and external resources into an interdependent cohesive unit.

XTeams should be flexible and adaptive over time. Rotate team members out of the team. These projects have three phases:
Explore: Scout new domains. Assess risk. Establish what kind of information is needed. Resist leaping to conclusions.
Exploit: Decide what opportunities exist. Get out of the sandbox. Create prototypes.  
Export: Move it into real world for feedback.

Leverage XTeams by focusing on strategic tasks like discovery and development of new products or processes. Create an overlay for the traditional organization. Solicit partnerships with outsiders. This can also result in new relationships with suppliers and partners, creating an infrastructure for innovation.  

This is, in effect, a form of distributed leadership. It is an efficient method to make sense of external environment. It builds a web of relationships and nurtures a vision of where organization might go which is grounded in reality. Responsibilities are shared. Alignment is part of the evolution. Participation and buy in are built in.

Choose team members for the strength of their networks. Who is connected with the broadest range of people, resources and channels? Make external outreach a mind set from the start. Send everyone out to interview external stakeholders. Verify or alter how goals map to external findings.

Systematize the process by providing standardized tools, checklists and workbooks to help focus the scouting, task coordination and ambassadorial activities. Help the team engage people through focused attention, clear milestones, and defined deliverables.
Keep top management committed by keeping them informed.  

RETURN TO: Front End of Innovation Speaker List