Being an expert and collaborative manager
The search for a solution to a problem between different expert departments often turns into a negotiation, or even a battle, to determine which viewpoint will prevail. The result is often “grey” compromises, where the best we can do is to settle on the lowest common denominator between all perspectives, and that becomes our solution. And that rarely leads to great achievements!
Being an expert in one field while also developing knowledge, openness, and collaboration with other areas of expertise allows us to save time and be more effective. This is what we call T-shaped management (the vertical bar represents expertise, the horizontal bar represents collaboration). This type of management, the complete opposite of the old “silo” approach, is not always easy to develop, but it significantly boosts creativity and reduces the time needed to arrive at relevant solutions. How?
1. Opening up to T-shaped management and facilitation
The essence of a T-shaped manager is the ability to imagine a problem from multiple perspectives, to put themselves in others’ shoes in order to better understand how they experience it. This fosters “active” listening. In a brainstorming session, they can then build new ideas in connection with others, rather than just proposing competing elements disconnected from the whole.
This is particularly true when developing a user interface (UX), for example, which depends on many elements handled by different teams (graphic design, technology, information architecture, etc.). If the graphic designer knows nothing about technology, they may propose designs that are unusable because they’re technically impossible to create. Americans call such people “multilingual managers”: they speak the “language” of multiple areas of expertise.
The four actions of a T-shaped manager are: collaborating with other teams, connecting people with those who hold the information they need, giving and receiving advice to improve and grow daily. An Accenture study showed that a manager spends on average two hours a day looking for information, and half of what they find is actually useless. A T-shaped manager helps connect the right people with the right information. This is the role of the “facilitator.”
2. Keeping your expertise while building T-shaped managers
While important, and even necessary, too much collaboration can also backfire. Meetings with peers can be very useful for sharing ideas and advice, but staying focused on one’s own expertise is key.
Even though Facebook now has 1.6 billion monthly users (half of the connected world), Mark Zuckerberg continues to practice developing every day. He even set himself the project of building a “Jarvis,” Iron Man’s artificial intelligence. At the same time, he broadens his global vision by reading mainly books on geostrategy and history (at least, that’s what he says!).
Despite the supposedly “generalist” nature of our school curricula, they still primarily produce experts, often with little openness to other fields. So it will be easier to develop these qualities within the company itself. But some people find it much easier than others to become collaborative—how do we identify and promote them?
Being a T-shaped manager is first and foremost a mindset: a natural curiosity for fields outside one’s own. This curiosity is essential to help us integrate new expertise continuously throughout our lives. From the job interview stage, in the way candidates talk and the answers they give, we can detect their ability to open up to other domains of expertise. For instance, if they talk about team achievements, or the role others played in their successes, chances are that collaborating with different teams won’t be an issue for them.
180° or 360° evaluations, as we mentioned in our previous article, are also excellent ways to measure collaboration skills.
3. How to develop both expertise and collaborative management
A good starting point is to classify the necessary skills into three categories: what I can do, what I can’t do, and what I can delegate. Having a good understanding of our strengths, weaknesses, and what can be easily delegated is key. This way, we know when to turn to another expert and when to free up real time by delegating.
Being a T-shaped manager also means facilitating access to the information our teams need to move forward. In the 20th century, the manager who held and guarded information had power. In the 21st century, it’s the one who circulates information while maintaining their expertise who holds the right kind of power. When we know that our teams work well and collaborate effectively with others, we can then take more risks.
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk.” —Mark Zuckerberg
In the same way that we often find an object when we stop looking for it, it’s by exploring domains outside our own that we often make discoveries in our own field. Remember the invention of the Post-it: in 1964, Spencer Silver accidentally created an adhesive that didn’t stick permanently. It was forgotten in a drawer for ten years. Later, two of his colleagues had the idea of coating sheets of paper with it. One marketing campaign later, and it became a worldwide success!