Building bridges can be quite exhilarating, can’t it? Meeting new folks, getting to know what makes them tick, as well as understanding their different approaches and opinion can be an absolutely eye-opening (in wonderment, mind!) and edifying experience par excellence! Furthermore, when it’s within a start-up, company or enterprise, the benefits are multi-fold and can be multiplied still further.
One way to achieve this extensively and effectively is by undertaking a well-thought out cross-functional team project. This provides a surprisingly stellar platform from which you can get out of a funk, and function as a well-oiled beast of a machine! Still have some doubts as to whether a cross-functional team project could be good for you? Why, we have a few more thoughts on why jumping in with both feet in this regard may be just the thing your company or startup needs!
Three (and more’s a jolly good) crowd!
Ponder this for a bit if you will, people don’t necessarily leave bad organisations as much as they leave bad people that frequent and make up the joint. Therefore, getting to know more people across teams through a project can only make for a more joyous, comfortable, and not to mention, harmonious workplace. Moreover, the camaraderie will be stunning! Undoubtedly also, this sociable atmosphere makes people stick around longer, and is a good way for companies to retain personnel, providing stability, continuity and loyalty in the long run. Now, that’s something many companies would give an arm and a leg for (Hand on heart time, we’re sure you’d willingly part with a limb or two at the prospect!).
Jack out of the box, and how!
Living not unlike that chap on a desert island keeps individual teams marooned far away from innovative and progressive ideas that could possibly help them nail that elusive solution. Unsurprisingly, operating in silos tends to insulate people from fresh ideas and approaches. So much so, the ‘same old same old solutions’ are trotted out, with minimal or no real progress made at all. On the other hand, when given the opportunity to interact with members of other disciplines through a cross-functional project, folks can then see what they have in common, and can mutually borrow solutions, ideas, practices and frameworks from other teams, and suitably adopt and adapt them into their own. With this on the cards, the organisation can truly grow together, and go places, while they’re at it!
Meld your heart with mine!
Rather than seemingly working at cross purposes, a cross-functional team project helps each team pull together, supplying complementary talents towards the glorious common cause. This creates a sense of unity unlike few others know to humankind! Now, this also presents companies with a wonderful scenario in which different teams ‘have each other’s backs’. This done with, a sense of ownership and responsibility where people meld their success with that of the organisation is definitely on the cards. A dreamy prospect, fo sho!
You can do what?
Pulling experts towards a common cause can help them and the organisation discover talents and proficiencies that previously lay buried well below the surface. In this situation, a cross-functional project serves as a different playing field, where a unique approach is called upon to ‘crack the code’. This is a huge departure from the humdrum of the everyday, and spontaneously allows new abilities and capabilities to bubble up to the surface. New talents, we hear you say? That can only be good stuff, all round!
to find and implement.
So now, we can only encourage you to wholeheartedly undertake one or two cross-functional team projects at your company or startup. Do go ahead and take the leap – a harmonious, successful and smooth-functioning organisation is sure to cradle, and dare we say it, cushion your landing!
