Why Establish Cross-functional Teams?
Peter Gumpert, Ph.D. (GLS Consulting, Inc. 10.23.98) Traditional systems: bosses, silos, and stovepipes Our traditional organizational forms get things done through authority-based reporting hierarchies, established bureaucracies, or some combination of the two. These forms have had both their advantages and their problems. We will not take up their historic advantages here; it is their problems that form the background for our discussion of stable cross-functional teams. The problems can be serious in current times, and even fatal in a future in which rapid change is the norm. The free flow of information throughout the organization is the lifeblood of modern business. Thus the veins, arteries, and capillaries that carry information through the company must be networked in complex ways, and must permit unconstrained flow. The traditional systems tend to create departmental/divisional stovepipes or “silos” that impede both communication and collaboration among them. Likewise, the tradi
