KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Cross-functional teams are always better than traditional hierarchical business models.
- Bringing people together with different perspectives can improve problem solving and lead to smarter, more sustainable decision making.
- The simplest definition of building a cross-functional team is to put together a group of people with different functional expertise so that they can use their expertise to achieve a common goal.
- A good cross-functional environment includes teams with individuals of different experience, age, gender, location, skills, seniority, and engagement.
- Working with cross-functional teams allows for the creation of novel and creative solutions for various projects that solve a wide range of issues.
- The best cross functional collaborations are led by professionals with an eye for optimization.