Ancona and Bresman on X-Teams

Teams scout information and expertise from external sources to improve understanding of what is occurring in the rest of the organization, as well as with customers and other stakeholders. Scouting also brings in critical information about competitors and emerging market trends. Scouting is achieved by proactive networking - talking to people both across the organization and outside it who have their finger on the pulse of trends that are critical for team success. Scouting might involve engaging with colleagues in IT, sales, technical or customer service departments, perhaps as part of a cross-functional project. Outside the organization scouting would involve talking to experts in the work of the team, e.g. university academics or competitors who have solved the problem the team is facing. Most scouting is achieved through meetings and conversations. Other methods include conducting surveys, questionnaires and direct observation of how other parts of the organization function.

2. Ambassadorship

This involves lobbying for resources and securing early buy-in for the team’s ideas by marketing the project or initiative to the right people in the organization. Ambassadorship calls for effective communication skills and the ability to pitch the team’s ideas to management and solicit their support.

Effective ambassadorship calls for strong influencing abilities. Ambassadors must also be able to negotiate for resources such as budget, expertise or technology, and work to raise the team’s profile by highlighting success wherever possible. Ambassadorship may also involve shielding the team from political battles or threats.

3. Task Coordination

To ensure that the team functions smoothly, tasks should be coordinated in relation to the team’s interdependencies and relationships with other teams and stakeholders inside and outside the organization. This involves securing timely cooperation, practical input and feedback from other individuals and groups with whom the team works. Once the right connections are made, teams must convince, influence and sometime cajole these parties to ensure access to information and resources. Effective task coordination can be achieved by:

• Setting ground rules for how the team will work with other teams
• Having regular meetings (or daily huddles) to agree on priorities and deadlines as the team members work with others
• Identifying connections to other groups with which the team is working
• Sharing experiences about what has and has not worked well with the task

Principle 2 - An Internal Culture of Extreme Execution

The second principle has three main areas:1. Psychological safetyThe first component of a culture of extreme execution is a team environment which supports a frank exchange of views. Psychological safety is about ensuring that people feel comfortable expressing differences of opinion, doubts and errors rather than keeping these concerns to themselves. As a result, vital information is shared, and team members can learn from their mistakes. Often, if a team member’s views differ from the group they can become worried about being labeled as a troublemaker. The team loses the benefit of individual creativity and innovation to groupthink.[5] To help a culture of psychological safety flourish, managers should find a balance where mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities rather than something which is ‘bad’. In meetings, managers should make time to discuss mistakes in a positive way, ensuring that learning points and new skills are highlighted, rather than dwelling upon what went wrong. Similarly, team members should be encouraged to ask for help when they need it, assist others, share information freely, and admit to mistakes.

2. Team reflectionFor a culture of extreme execution to grow, team members must be able to take time to reflect upon their actions, strategies and objectives. Reflection allows people to pause and take stock of their current situation, and to consider which approaches are working and which need to change. A highly reflective team will conduct effective debriefing sessions at key points throughout tasks and projects, as well as at the end. Team leaders can demonstrate a clear commitment to reflection by using ‘check-in’ time at the beginning of meetings where all team members have the opportunity to share what is going on in the team and to discuss how they feel about it.

3. Knowing what others knowA key aspect of extreme execution is a team’s ability to create a shared sense of what others in the team know. Team members need to make their own areas of expertise known, as well as seeking to understand others’ expertise. This approach helps a team to connect ‘islands of expertise’ into a cohesive, focused system in which the right people work on the right tasks at the right time. This also means that the team can seek external help where they don’t possess critical knowledge within their own boundaries. Getting to know each other’s areas of expertise can be done as part of a team building exercise. This can include mapping the team’s collective knowledge as well as the professional networks and contacts each person brings to the table.

Principle 3 - Flexible Phases

X-teams change their core tasks over the course of a project’s lifetime. This ensures that the team does not become fixed in any single mode of operation. In an X-team, activity moves between three distinct phases, each with a different focus and balance between internal and external activity:

1. Exploring the external environment. In this initial phase, teams must scout out the world around them, think in new ways, gather and make sense of information. Here, team members will begin to make use of their ambassadorial skills as they start to build relationships and negotiate between different options.
2. Exploiting opportunities. In this phase, teams start to take stock of the initial exploration phase and begin to visualize what they want to achieve and how they will move towards it. This calls for strong ambassadorship and task coordination as work begins in earnest to achieve the team’s goal.

Exporting innovation to the wider organization. In this final phase, teams shift focus and ensure that their work can be transferred successfully across the organization. This involves a continuation of task coordination to ensure that knowledge is shared and transferred across the organization effectively, as well as ongoing ambassadorship activity to highlight the team’s successes.

Three X-Factors for X-teams

The authors argue that in addition to the three core principles of X-teams, three additional ‘X-factors’ are critical to its success. These relate to how an X-team is structured.

1. Extensive ties to useful outsiders. These connections allow team members to reach out across the team’s boundaries to seek additional guidance and expertise. Weak ties are described as relationships with people who are not known very well, and where requests are generally minimal. Strong ties are important external relationships, which facilitate a much higher level of input from an outside party, involving the transfer of complex information into the team. If such ties do not exist, the team can struggle when it comes to securing expertise, resources and support for its efforts.

2. Expandable tiers. Where appropriate in terms of organizational structure and project lifecycles, X-teams work best when they are allowed to operate across three distinct relationship tiers. Team members perform duties across the following levels as required:

• Core membership. These historical members carry the team’s identity, and are almost always present when the team is formed. Core team members are involved in early decision-making concerning the team’s overall strategy and direction.
• Operational layer. Operational team members are engaged in the ongoing work of the team and work to ‘get the job done’. They are often a tight-knit group with a keen focus upon what their role (and final goal) is. Operational membership can alter as the skills and abilities needed for different tasks changes.
• Outer-net tier. These members often join the team to work on a task that is separate from the main operational work. These members bring specialist expertise and the membership changes in response to requirements for expertise.

3. Exchangeable membership. As highlighted above, one of the hallmarks of an X-team is that its membership is fluid, and changes over time in response to work progress, priorities and environment. Although this may not be possible in every team, allowing membership to fluctuate allows the team to be configured in such a way to allow adaptation and movement between the different phases of the team’s activity.

Conclusion

The X-teams approach offers a framework which leaders and managers can use to create more effective teams. Although the authors argue that external relationships are critical to a team’s success, they acknowledge that this area is often neglected in favor of analysis of internal team issues and dynamics. Finding the right balance between internal and external activities, helping the team reach outwards and cultivating a culture that supports open and honest discussion will allow X-teams to flourish.