Long before they need help, a manager builds relationships with peers and seniors outside their own function and level, so when a proposal needs allies there are people who will take the call.
An example
For three years, the regulatory affairs manager at an industrial coatings company had kept a list of people outside his department he wanted to know: a sales director in the automotive segment, the head of procurement, two plant managers, the chief financial officer's chief of staff, and a product manager at a joint-venture partner. He had lunch with one of them most weeks, sat on a cross-functional task force on supplier audits that nobody else in his department wanted, and passed along the occasional article. When the automotive segment's largest customer banned a solvent from all its suppliers' coatings, he needed sales, procurement, and one plant to commit people within a month. Each took his call the same day. The reformulation proposal reached the executive committee with all three functions named as owners, and it was approved at the first meeting.
Why it works
With the relationships in place before the request, support is easier to find. People take calls from those they know and trust, and they are far more likely to commit resources for someone they have worked with than for a stranger with an urgent need. A network that spans functions and levels also brings information early, so the manager sees problems and openings before they reach the formal channels. The network has to be built deliberately and steadily, before it is needed, and the relationships have to give something to both sides.
The thinking behind it
Herminia Ibarra How Leaders Create and Use Networks (2007), by Ibarra and Hunter, draws on a study of 30 managers moving into leadership and distinguishes operational, personal, and strategic networking, the last being the ability to marshal information, support, and resources from one part of a network to achieve results in another. Many managers neglect it. A regulatory manager who knew sales, procurement, and a plant before the solvent ban arrived had built exactly the strategic kind.
John P. Kotter In The General Managers (1982), Kotter found that effective general managers set agendas early and built networks of cooperative relationships with the many people their agendas depended on, inside and outside the formal chain of command, then used those networks to carry the agendas out. The tactic follows that order: the relationships come first, and the agenda that later depends on them finds people ready to take the call.
Linda A. Hill Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader (2011), by Hill and Lineback, makes managing a network one of three imperatives for managers: understanding how power and influence work in the organization and building mutually beneficial relationships with the people a manager needs beyond the team. The stress on mutual benefit is why the tactic asks for something to offer each contact.
When it fits
Most managers moving into leadership will someday need support from outside their own function, and that is when it pays. It needs regular time set aside for people you do not need yet, a willingness to join cross-functional work, and something to offer each contact: information, help, perspective.
How to use it well
Think about where your proposals will need support in two or three years and who sits there now, across functions, levels, and the outside parties your work depends on.
- Make a list and work through it: a lunch, a question, a shared project.
- Join cross-functional task forces and committees, especially the ones others avoid.
- Give before you take, with information, introductions, and help on their problems.
- Keep in touch at a modest, regular rhythm, so a call when you need something is not the first in a year.
Review the list every few months. Networks drift toward the people you already see, and the deliberate part is reaching the ones you would not.
What it costs and where it backfires
It takes time that will not show in your results for years, and colleagues in your own function may see it as politicking. Relationships built only for use feel hollow to the other person, and they notice. A broad network can spread you thin. Real relationships that serve both sides are the whole basis. Once contacts are used for information their function has not agreed to share, or to go around their bosses, they stop trusting you, and so do others who hear about it.
When it is used on you
Cross-functional support you cannot match usually means the colleague built the relationships first, and the remedy is to do the same. If you suspect their network is being used to bypass a decision your function owns, raise it in the forum where that decision is made and ask that requests come through it.