5 Ways to Develop an Enterprise Mindset

polo · 2023-12-26T04:35:14+00:00

Start with customer centricity. Your customers don’t care about your silos. They care about the quality and affordability of your products and services. Keep their concerns front of mind and you’re more likely to steer clear of siloed thinking. Become a student of other business functions. In his great HBR article “How Managers Become Leaders,” Michael Watkins says, “Enterprise leaders need to recognize that business functions are distinct managerial subcultures, each with its own mental models and language. Leaders must be able to speak the language of all the functions and translate for them when necessary.” This helps leaders “resolve…competing issues…[and understand] how to make tradeoffs.” Set up time over the next 6 months with one person from each business function outside of yours and bring questions that will help you understand the goals, challenges, and success measures of those business areas. Cultivate cross-functional relationships. It’s not enough to simply learn about other business functions. Companies are best served when meaningful human relationships exist across functions. This may not happen naturally, and you may have to make it happen. In one heavily-siloed organization I worked with, executives from various business areas came together for an out-of-state week-long leadership development program. They learned a lot, but more importantly, they created friendships and connections across business functions that allowed them to work more seamlessly together to achieve the company’s goals. See the entire ecosystem. In addition to learning about each business function, start to see the whole system as a series of interconnected parts. This starts with an in-depth understanding of how the business works and what creates profit and loss. I’m often astounded at the lack of business and financial acumen even among high-level leaders. At one point in my own career, I acknowledged that I needed a deeper understanding of corporate finance, so I got a mentor who made a world of difference for me. I gained an understanding of the various profit and loss levers and an appreciation for their dependencies on and implications for different business areas. Point back to enterprise goals. With your team and with partners, rely on phrases like “I know we both want the same thing – to help our company reach [enterprise goal],” or “This decision gets us closer to [enterprise goal A] but may also have implications to [enterprise goal B].” Ask questions that bring the conversation back around to broader goals and enterprise impacts.