In our last blog post, we told you about Bob, the vice president of an electronics manufacturer who was caught up in a poorly executed transition to a matrix. Along the way, we explained some of the advantages and disadvantages of the matrix management model and why it can be difficult to master.
In this post we’ll talk about some things that Bob and his organization might have done to make their matrix work for team members—and how we helped the organization successfully implement these strategies.
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Creating a Healthy Environment for Matrix Management
As we touched on in the previous post, a matrix can only be as strong as the foundation it rests on. In fact, the primary flaw in implementing a matrix approach seems to be the belief that function will follow form, as opposed to the other way around. (That is, if we build the matrix, our people will come around.)
There are a lot of assumptions here. For example, the idea that team members will instantly be at ease operating in a looser environment of high trust when they’ve spent years working within a more traditional command and control structure. If only it were so.
To that end, here are some tips for increasing the likelihood of a smooth transition.
Establish a Culture that Assumes Beneficial Intent
The absence of trust in a matrix management environment can be toxic. People’s natural hyper-vigilance and ego can get the best of them, spawning conspiracy theories and dramas that prove others are out to undermine their work. Self-protection becomes the way of survival.
When you’re inside the matrix, however, it’s critical that team members and business units build up an impulse to assume the best in others. “Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance” is a good rule of thumb here.
In the face of an issue or conflict, encourage workers to inquire non-judgmentally about what happened rather than automatically believing it was an intentional act of sabotage, and offer to help rectify any plans that go off course.
Call-out/Tip
Early on in your transition to a matrix management system, execute a few critical business processes. This will be a good way to test your progress and ensure that there’s consistency across the matrix management structure (in responsibilities, accountability metrics, etc.).
If the results aren’t what you were hoping for, no sweat. It’s still early, and you have time to make tweaks that would be much more disruptive down the road.
Build Skills that Support Working in a Matrix
Working cross-functionally/horizontally, and doing it while potentially answering to multiple managers, is anything but intuitive. It requires a very sophisticated skill and attributes set that most humans aren’t innately equipped with.
Organizations that intend to compete in matrixed environments need to deliberately ensure their organizations are equipped with these skills. This includes ensuring workers are:
- able to influence others without relying on title or position
- willing to explore the effects of their influence, both good and bad
- comfortable with their own sense of agency
- confident when it comes to standing on the merits of a point of view without becoming dogmatic
Tolerate Ambiguity
Team members with a strong need for control are at the greatest risk of failing in a matrix setting. That is unless they learn to be comfortable in environments where decisions can feel less than perfect, available information seems incomplete, requests feel contradictory, and a bias for action is prized in order to keep work moving forward.
Developing one’s “sixth sense” of what will or won’t work comes with time and experience in the environment. It’s probably no surprise that organizations with excessive turnover will likely never be able to thrive in a matrixed management environment. Continuity is essential to developing a tolerance for ambiguity.
Provide Clarity in Roles
Be clear when it comes to defining roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities This is probably the one issue we hear about most often when organizations migrate to a matrix.
The more clarity you can bring to people’s roles, responsibilities, and what they will be held accountable for, the more likely they will reach the performance levels you hoped for when you first began transitioning.
Give people plenty of time and workshop space to design their roles, negotiate their boundaries, and raise concerns when they feel the role being defined for them is unrealistic, redundant, or contradictory.
With our rigid military chain of command blown away, the cultural and political rules based on facing upward disappeared with the commanders. Sideways was as important as upwards, and we weren’t sure which way to face because both bosses shared equal power over our performance and pay.
Take a Whole-System View
Whenever employees join a new company, the first thing they typically do is get the lay of the land. They ask questions like,
- Who are the players?
- Who’s doing similar work?
- What’s the history of the company?
- Are there a lot of players who have been around for years?
Next, they investigate the unique characteristics of the organization.
- How do they do their work here?
- How are they structured?
- Are their meetings scheduled in a way that actually helps them accomplish what they’re attempting?
Drilling down into the nuts and bolts of a company’s internal and external contexts accomplishes two things. First, it helps broaden the perspective of those working in the organization. Second, they start to understand what information to share with whom and when/how to share it.
Not to mention, they begin to see who should be involved in which decisions and the degree to which they should be involved. Ironically, understanding the whole helps the parts work together more productively than they would have alone. Little by little, 1+1 starts equaling 3!
Putting it All Together: A Structure for Matrix Management that Works
Now let’s get back to Bob.
After we were called in by the electronics company, our first task was to speak with team members in all different levels and roles (aka, get a whole-system view).
We immediately established a plan for both managers—and all others in their respective teams—to regularly share resources, including timelines. The idea was that this kind of mutual transparency is a relatively easy way to help build up trust between two currently hostile tribes.
Next, we asked all managers in the company (many of whom had more than one person reporting to them) to concretely outline their expectations, in performance and approach, for their direct reports—and then asked the direct reports to do the same for the managers.
Finally, we established collaborative goals and spelled out how everyone would be held accountable for reaching them (at the completion level, not an individual level).
A few quarters later, the organization’s product launches were mostly back on track—and people were working productively together again.
Like most major changes that are worth doing, transitioning to a matrix management system can’t happen overnight. But if you approach it with a healthy respect, it can offer an adaptable, efficient organizational framework for years to come.