Bonding the Organisational Matrix

The Problem

The problem with the organisational matrix is that everyone in it has two managers. This is problematic for staff as it means trying to work out who you are accountable to. Typically, people describe their position in the matrix as having “a direct line to “x” and a dotted line to “y”. But what do “direct lines” mean compared to “dotted” lines? And if it’s difficult for staff, it’s just as bad for managers who aren’t sure what they ought to be doing with staff who also work with other managers. On the extreme end of this situation is annual review time when the reviewing manager has to get feedback from another manager one how their member of staff had performed during the year. It just seems farcical that someone who is hasn’t witnessed a person’s performance is asked to express an opinion about how well you have done over a whole year!

Even so the matrix is there for very good reason. It provides flexibility to organisations, concentrates key skill-sets together and maximises efficiencies. So the matrix is here to stay; we just need to adjust how we manage each other to make it more legitimate, authentic and genuine.

Why Extra-Dependent Teams? 

That’s where Extra-Dependent Teams come in. They are different from Inter-Dependent Teams in that they are made up of people who all do much the same sort of thing, but who work with others outside the team. Inter-Dependent teams by comparison are our traditional understanding of team – people working together to achieve a common goal. Inter-Dependent Teams are key within the Matrix since this is where the work is delivered; you get a team of people together, all of whom have a different set of skills, and deploy them on a piece of work with a specific objective in mind.

Extra-Dependent Teams by contrast are the teams from where the individuals are deployed. For instance an Inter-Dependent Team might be made up of a project manager, technical specialists, an account manager and a product manager. They are all “dotted” line managed by, for instance, a technical lead. But when you look at who “directly” line manages each person, they all sit within teams made up of people who all do the same thing. For instance, a team of project managers, a team of technical specialists, a team of account managers and a team of product managers. Where these teams exist, they are Extra-Dependent Teams.

The concept of Extra-Dependent Teams has fascinated me for years because they appear to be so dysfunctional. Yet, having studied them I now recognise that they are genuinely good for organisations – so long as a manager knows what they need to do in order to manage one. And what better way to start to manage one than to know the purpose of reviewing performance.

Here are some pointers.

• Firstly the main performance role of an Extra-Dependent Team manager is not about team members achieving work goals. Their main interest should be on developing the individual and collective capability of the team. It is this capability that should be the focus of the performance review

• The team member will have been using their capability within an Inter-dependent team elsewhere in the matrix during the year, so their goal performance should be reviewed by the Inter-Dependent Team manager regularly during this period. This performance should be based on their specialist contribution to the common goal. Extra-Dependent Team managers should be encouraging the Inter-dependent Team managers to give such feedback direct to their people rather than going through them. This means Inter-dependent Team managers have the right to build the team around a common goal.

• That leaves the Extra-Dependent Team manager build their team around a common practice. This means performance reviews are around exploring how much the team member has developed, where they have developed and how they have used that development to the benefit of their work in other teams.

• In addition to this Extra-Dependent Team managers need to share that development across the whole of their team, which means facilitating the sharing of positive and negative experiences that team members have had. So the review can also explore how much members have shared, the quality of that learning and how much impact it has had on the team. The opposite is also true, meaning Extra-Dependent Team managers should also pay attention at what shared lessons have been learned by a member and how they have applied it within their work for the benefit of their role within other teams.

This means that within the matrix, Inter-Dependent Team managers are responsible for delivering common goals and leading their whole team towards that. By contrast, Extra-Dependent Team managers promote the shared learning of the whole team thereby developing its combined capability. These relatively simple things help bind the matrix together because:

• Inter-Dependent Teams work together to achieve a common goal
• Extra-Dependent Teams learn together to develop a common practice

It allows a person in the matrix to be in two different teams simultaneously, to receive different support from each manager, for that support to be complementary rather than competitive and for each team manager to recognise and respect the purpose of the other team manager. When this happens, staff feel engaged, connected, more supported and yet more liberated within the complexity that is the organisation matrix. The matrix is better bonded and more fulfilling.

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