My leadership team members get their individual departmental Rocks done, but they consistently ignore our cross-functional team Rocks, leading to stalled strategic initiatives. How do we build shared accountability?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When leaders prioritize their individual departmental goals over cross-functional Rocks, they are still operating in silos. They are acting as managers of their departments rather than enterprise-level leaders of the company. You must break this pattern.

First, remind your team of the first pillar of your Charter, which is Same Page. This means we are one team with one vision. The success of the entire company always takes priority over the success of any single department.

Review how you write and assign Rocks. If a Rock requires input from multiple departments, you must still assign it to one accountable owner on your Accountability Chart. Having multiple owners means nobody is accountable. The owner of the Rock is responsible for driving the project forward and keeping everyone aligned.

Next, address this in your weekly Level 10 Meeting™. When a cross-functional Rock is reported as off-track, do not let the owner make excuses about other departments failing to help. Immediately drop it down to the IDS® list.

Use the IDS process to identify the bottleneck. Is it a resource issue, a priority conflict, or a lack of communication? Resolve it permanently in the meeting. By holding the entire team accountable for supporting the Rock owner, you will build a culture of collaboration.