Unraveling the Matrix Organisation
Quick Breakdown
In today's complex business world, many leaders find themselves operating within matrix organizations, where they must navigate dual reporting relationships and collaborate with various functional teams. Success in this environment depends not only on leading your team to deliver top-notch work but also on effectively managing your lateral stakeholders. Unfortunately, this skill is often overlooked within organizations, leaving leaders struggling to find the right approach. Through my coaching and mentoring work, I have helped leaders engage with their stakeholders authentically, building trust and fostering collaboration.
By understanding the agenda of each stakeholder, having meaningful conversations, and using tools like the Eisenhower Matrix, leaders can identify common ground and potential areas of risk. Additionally, learning to balance the sense of urgency with a more strategic, long-term perspective enables leaders to make informed decisions and drive better outcomes for their teams. Understanding the unique communication preferences of each stakeholder archetype, as explored in Mary Abbajay's Managing Up, further enhances collaboration and relationship-building. By mastering the art of stakeholder engagement, leaders can unlock their full potential and propel their teams to success in even the most complex matrix organizations.
Navigating The Matrix – An Inside Look
Operating within a matrix organisation can be a complex and challenging experience for many leaders. This organisational structure, characterised by dual reporting relationships, often requires professionals to report to both functional and project/product leaders. The purpose of this structure is to balance the needs of functional teams and project demands, with decision-making authority typically decentralised as much as possible. In most cases, the successful execution of projects and the fulfilment of responsibilities depend not only on leading a high-performing team but also on effectively managing lateral stakeholders. However, this critical skill is rarely taught in school and often goes unrecognised and undeveloped within organizations.
To illustrate the challenges faced by leaders in this environment, let me share a recent example from one of my coaching clients. She expressed her struggle as follows: "Previously, I was accustomed to receiving problems from leadership that I could solve within my own capabilities. Now, I am constantly dependent on other teams' projects and initiatives. In order to fulfil my responsibilities, I must work with lateral stakeholders and ensure they complete or course correct and fix their projects and initiatives. Initially, I resorted to forcefully pushing my stakeholders to change their priorities and realign their backlogs so that I could deliver on my own goals. It soon clicked that strong-arming stakeholders to change priorities and backlogs to meet my own goals was doing more harm than good, eroding trust and proving unsustainable in the long run.”
In a matrix organisation, leaders often find themselves reporting to multiple superiors or stakeholders, each with their own set of expectations and priorities. This can create a complex web of relationships that requires finesse to navigate successfully.
One of the main challenges in this scenario is managing the diverse expectations of different reporting lines. Each stakeholder may have their own objectives and agenda, making it difficult to align everyone's interests. The leader must understand and prioritise the needs of each stakeholder while also ensuring that the overall organisational goals are met.
Engaging with stakeholders versus managing them
To tackle this challenge, leaders in a matrix organisation need to proactively build strong relationships with their multiple reporting lines. This begins with open and transparent communication, where leaders regularly engage with each stakeholder to understand their expectations and ensure all parties are on the same page. Active listening is also crucial, as it allows leaders to grasp the motivations and concerns of each stakeholder and find ways to address them effectively.
Building strong relationships in a matrix organisation also involves seeking regular feedback. Leaders should actively solicit feedback from each reporting line to assess their performance and make any necessary adjustments. This feedback loop helps leaders maintain alignment with the expectations of each stakeholder and demonstrates their commitment to continuous improvement.
I worked closely with her to develop a more effective approach to engaging with her lateral stakeholders authentically, through meaningful conversations. I encouraged her to gain a deep understanding of the agenda of each stakeholder, transforming interactions into dialogues rather than mere lists of demands. Additionally, I recommended that she prioritise spending individual time with each stakeholder, creating an opportunity to connect on a personal level by sharing mutual needs and challenges. By fostering such relationships, leaders and stakeholders can explore how they can mutually strengthen one another through collaboration, recognising the importance of balanced and interdependent relationships.
One powerful framework that can facilitate these conversations with lateral stakeholders is the Eisenhower Matrix, also known as the Urgent-Important Matrix. This time management tool, named after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, helps prioritise tasks based on their urgency and importance. By filling out the matrix together, leaders and stakeholders can gain a better understanding of each other's perspectives and identify points of intersection. These intersections represent avenues of interdependency and risk, enabling timely problem-solving before projects progress further, and keeping projects on track.
By effectively managing the diverse expectations of multiple reporting lines, leaders can ensure alignment, gain support, and build strong relationships throughout the organisation. This approach not only strengthens their leadership position but also enhances their ability to drive successful outcomes in a complex matrix organisation.
Building Bridges: Mastering Influential Relationships
In a matrix organisation, developing influential relationships is a critical challenge that leaders must overcome. The success of a matrix structure relies heavily on collaboration, teamwork, and the ability to influence others without direct authority. Leaders must navigate complex networks of relationships to gain support, drive initiatives forward, and foster a culture of collaboration across the organisation.
One of the main challenges in developing influential relationships is building trust and credibility. Without formal authority, leaders must earn the trust and respect of their colleagues, peers, and stakeholders. This requires strong interpersonal skills, active networking, and the ability to empathise with others. Leaders must be able to understand different perspectives, establish rapport, and demonstrate their expertise and competence.
Effective communication is also crucial in developing influential relationships. Leaders should engage in transparent and open dialogue, actively listen to others, and clearly articulate their ideas and vision. By effectively communicating their objectives and aligning them with the broader organisational goals, leaders can inspire and motivate others to come together and support their initiatives.
By proactively developing influential relationships, leaders can foster collaboration, secure buy-in for their ideas, and create a supportive network across the organisation. They become catalysts for change, able to navigate complex organisational dynamics, and drive successful outcomes in a matrix environment.
Understanding Urgency
Understanding the concept of urgency is often a challenge for leaders in matrix organizations. Many leaders, encouraged by their past successes as individual contributors, exhibit a strong inclination to address every problem that arises with utmost urgency. However, I encourage my clients to consider the metaphor of a runner. While intensity and urgency have their merits, true leadership encompasses more than just sprinting. Just as an athlete needs to balance intensity with endurance and easy days, leaders must learn to slow down and strategically assess situations to achieve optimal results.
To navigate this shift, I guide my clients in selecting their battles wisely. Not everything can or should be treated as urgent. The solution lies in engaging with stakeholders and truly understanding their agendas and battles. By gaining insights into how stakeholders perceive progress and the need for active involvement, leaders can consolidate and prioritise the work of their own team. This ensures that they choose the appropriate approach, whether it be one of intensity and urgency or a slower, more collaborative, and unfolding process.
Applying these principles gradually strengthens relationships with your team and other leaders around you, building mutual trust and understanding. When leaders and their teams become involved in projects, their presence is seen as supportive and aligned with the important work that needs to be done.
Embracing the anthropologist within
Diving deeper into effective stakeholder engagement, Mary Abbajay's book "Managing Up" (2018) provides valuable strategies for improving relationships with bosses. I find that many of these strategies also apply to engaging with lateral stakeholders. Sometimes, leaders need to adopt the role of anthropologists, studying the behaviour and preferences of various stakeholders.
Utilising the archetypes presented in Abbajay's book, leaders can identify the most suitable strategies and approaches for working effectively with each stakeholder. For instance, a stakeholder with introverted tendencies may prefer focusing on their own thoughts and ideas, requiring proactive engagement and the opportunity to prepare in advance for meetings. While an Advancer is merely interested in solutions for problems. Preferably several solution so she can help you pick the best one. An Advancer typically wants you to be concise, proactive and focus on results using data and facts. Here you will find an overview of working effectively with different archetypes.
It is important to remember that each stakeholder is unique, and communication preferences can vary, even among introverts. The provided archetypes and frameworks should be viewed as a starting point, allowing leaders to adjust their approaches as needed to better engage with their stakeholders. Here you will find more details about archetypes and how to better understand them.
Final Thoughts
Successfully navigating the intricate spiderweb of a matrix organisation requires leaders to develop strong skills in managing lateral stakeholders. By embracing authentic conversations, understanding stakeholder agendas, and choosing battles strategically, leaders can foster trust and collaboration, ultimately achieving superior results. Engaging stakeholders and employing frameworks, such as the Eisenhower Matrix, can facilitate effective dialogue, enhance problem-solving, and promote mutually beneficial relationships. As leaders evolve, they learn to balance intensity with endurance and engagement with understanding, becoming well-rounded leaders capable of unlocking their teams' best work while achieving long-term organisational success.
