How to steer people’s efforts without hierarchical authority over them?
How to share methods and tools in cross-functional units?
How to coordinate work and enable cooperation without hierarchical ties?           

For whom

Managers in charge of cross-functional, functional or operational processes         

Objectives

Understand and fill your role as expert in your field.
Position your role as cross-functional manager and fine-tune your strategy.
Develop your influence without hierarchical authority.
Coordinate functions.
Nurture a cooperative approach among stakeholders and their managers.

Program

The strategist
- Why companies use cross-functional missions.
- Positioning your role as cross-functional manager.
- Positioning yourself as cross-functional manager.
- Rolling out a strategy to approach stakeholders.

The leader
- Exerting your influence over people who have different frames of reference.
- Leveraging influence without statutory authority.

The manager
- Identifying the different coordination mechanisms at work in the organisation.
- Cross-functional management and coordination mechanisms.
- How to use the different coordination tools.

The communicator
- Fostering cross-functional cooperation.
- Dealing with stakeholder resistance.

Benefits for the participant

Find the right position to fill your specific role as cross-functional manager
Find the right bearings to play your role effectively and efficiently in a complex organization.
Blend your role into other management modes.
Involve players in efforts to achieve shared objectives or further shared interests.
Improve interpersonal issues in functional relationships.
Promote your role as cross-functional manager.

 Benefits for the company

Position cross-functional missions more clearly to enhance management efficiency across the board (hierarchical, project, network and cross-functional management).
Greater cross-functional mission efficiency (integrated units, practice pooling, and shared policy, methods and tools).
Connect interfaces and use them more efficiently.
Better cooperation between hierarchical ties and cross functional units.

Concept

The keys to cross-functional management efficiency
1] The expert: understanding and filling your role as expert in your field
2] The strategist: understanding where your role as cross-functional manager creates value and adjusting your strategy accordingly
3] The leader: leveraging influence without statutory authority
4] The manager: coordinating cross functional efforts in matrix units
5] The communicator: creating the conditions that enable cross-functional cooperation

Our angle:
- Hierarchical and project management methods do not work in cross-functional management situations
- Cross-functional management takes more than influence and communication techniques
- A cross-functional manager has to be an expert, strategist, leader, manager and communicator

Role-play: the Eclipsa case
‘Stepping into a cross-functional manager’s shoes’
Case study:
- Ion Popescu has just been appointed quality manager at Eclipsa, a group based in the south of Europe. Eclipsa’s corporate culture is top-down and staff have a habit of punctiliously following orders from senior management and HQ support functions
- Gutheberg, a Scandinavian company with a much more democratic and consensus-based management culture, has just bought out Eclipsa
- Ion’s job scope has grown, he has started working with new units, using the methods he has always used, and he is having a lot of trouble...