Organizing into cross-functional teams

Creativity and innovation are best ‘nourished’ within those areas where the boundaries of established knowledge and ideas intersect, which is termed ‘the Medici Effect’. Therefore, a business that takes this into account when organizing

Figure 2.13 Variety of competences

will be the most likely to succeed. The creation of cross-functional teams is one way of implementing ‘the Medici effect’. It is at the intersection of knowledge and ideas that new ideas and innovations will develop, resulting in an ‘ideas-fountain’ throwing new ideas up into the air, testing them, and then selecting some of these, and trying them out in the market. The ideas that have the right of life in this market will become the innovations that one can live off in the future. The ideas that are developed will be related to the goals of the organization. Therefore, it is crucial to develop those ideas which can become part of the organization’s future. How can we make sure this happens in an organization? The answer lies in the knowledge we have that people will always reach for those goals that they are being measured against. Therefore, it is crucial to communicate to individual employees why they are being measured, how they are measured, what is measured and the consequences this process will have for the employee. For example one consequence could be that a team that produces an innovation that the market demands will receive a share of the profits the innovation creates for the business or organization.

We have illustrated the input and output of cross-functional teams in Figure 2.14.

Figure 2.14 Cross-functional teams

Supporting and participating in scenario teams

Scenario thinking is a planning method used by organizations when preparing for the future. Of course, the various envisioned scenarios do not intend to precisely predict the future - this is not their purpose. The point is to prepare the organization for possible future situations, whatever these may happen to be. Scenario teams should be composed according to a diversity principle that takes age, gender, culture, ethnicity, knowledge background, methodological perspective, and so on, into account. In terms of age composition, the following generations should be included in these teams: Z-generation (20-25 +), Millennials (26-37), Gen X (38-56 +) and Boomers (55-75 +) (Meister & Mulcahy, 2017: 140).²⁰

Change is not only something that these scenario teams need to focus on; it is a decisive factor for surviving as an organization. Those who are not on board with this basic premise should not be part of the team or the organization. Byron Reese, in the first sentence of his book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity, states that ‘The most distinctive characteristic of the last century or so might seem to be the enormous amount of change that has occurred’ (2018: 1). However, human emotions have not changed, but new technology will affect people’s emotions in different ways with regard to their expectations, hopes, dreams and fears of what is to come in the future. Scenario teams should seek to reduce fears and increase hopes of something better for everyone in the organization.