From the course: Managing in a Matrixed Organization

Defining accountabilities

From the course: Managing in a Matrixed Organization

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Defining accountabilities

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- When leading matrix employees, you need to set clear accountabilities for those team members. You also have to ensure the accountabilities set for them by your counterpart are reasonable and aligned with your broader business goals. For example, let's say we have a call center. The strategy team might be accountable for defining the call center's strategies and offers you make. The operations team is accountable for setting and managing staffing levels. The IT team is accountable for platform uptime and any upgrades that you install. It's really clear what every team is on the hook for. Once accountabilities are set, you need to hold your team members accountable for delivering on them. If the strategy team is compensated based on the success of their strategies, they're going to drive the right behaviors. Operations should be measured on staffing adherence. You might measure the IT team on system uptime. When someone misses a metric, it impacts their performance. The thing is, if operations misses their metric of having staffing at the right level, that's going to impact the strategy team's performance. If IT misses their uptime goals, the operation's staffing is going to be off. This means teams have to communicate, they have to plan effectively, and most importantly, they have to be able to rely on each other. You'll need to resolve any tensions and conflict that occur when their accountabilities are at odds. If the operations team is trying to reduce staffing costs but the strategy team wants higher staffing so their offers perform better, who's going to decide which approach is pursued? That ends up being your job and your counterpart's job in this situation. Accountabilities are key to driving the right performance for your matrix organization.

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