Mastering cross-functional collaboration
Intro
When you go to your bank's website to make a transaction, you might be using software made by Alkami. The fast-growing financial services software platform aims for every person to have access to bleeding-edge digital banking services while still experiencing a personal touch.
The Challenge
As the leader of multiple tech companies before Alkami, CEO Alex Shootman knew that one of his first jobs would be to help the organization learn to solve the toughest problems across functions, like engineering, product, sales, and implementation. He described the challenge of any fast-growing tech company this way: "If a problem takes one function to solve, it gets solved well 100% of the time. Two functions - it gets solved 80% of the time. But when something takes three functions to solve, it's a nightmare."
The Executive Leadership team wanted to ensure all leaders at Alkami could solve tough, cross-functional problems quickly and effectively.
The Impact
After completing our work together, Alkami CEO Alex Shootman described its simplicity, practicality, and sweeping impact:
"I've been successful in working with Vega Factor across two different companies, and they've brought both tools and advice that allowed our team to learn how to solve problems across multiple functions. These have been very practical tools that the team is able to understand, learn, and apply.
Prior to working with Vega Factor, most approaches that I found where we're trying to get people to work across multiple functions were either too esoteric or they were insufficiently lightweight to actually make a difference. The difference in working with Vega Factor is twofold.
One, they come with a set of tools that are easy to understand and easy to apply.
And two, there's a recognition that the problem in working across functions is not that the people are bad, but that they just haven't learned these skills.
And so the application of the tools and then the coaching process winds up in the management team learning the skills to work cross functionally to be able to execute the business strategies that we want to execute as an organization."
Colleagues throughout the organization described it as having deep personal and professional impact, helping them solve problems more holistically and collaboratively.
- "This has been my favorite leadership development program to implement in my 30-year career." - Erica Wakefield, VP Learning and Talent Management
- "This has been an amazing learning experience for me both personally and professionally. We're overachievers by nature. [Using Factor] has surfaced that what we think is the problem is not the problem... It's not about perfection. It's about discussion, evolution, and growth. Thank you." - Team Lead
- "I have loved learning to 'appreciate the problem' before jumping to solutions. We are 'solutionists' at heart, so pausing to understand is not in our nature. It's helped reinforce the importance of bringing data to the problem. I'm glad we have a common language at the Leadership Team level and see it trickling down." - Manager
The Solution
The journey included:
- A workshop for the Executive Leadership Team on the science of performance and motivation and Vega's approach to problem solving. This was followed by a series of executive working sessions to create an action plan for how the company's operating model could unlock higher performance and problem solving for leaders, with a focus on process redesign.
- A day-long workshop for the top 40 senior leaders to learn the same concepts and apply them to the company's three big goals for the year. By the end of the day, Alkami's leadership had redefined its core focus areas for the year and generated creative, new ideas for how to solve them. This training was later conducted for the next layer of 50 leaders, followed by a one-hour, virtual training for all managers and all individual contributors.
- Coaching three "Lighthouse Teams", made up of 10 senior leaders each. Each team was put together to solve one of the critical challenges the company wanted to solve that quarter. With Vega's support and the use of Factor.ai, the teams learned new techniques to identify the root cause of a problem, generate creative ideas to solve those problems, and design quick experiments to launch fast.
