During the construction of a new house a few years ago, I stopped by the site one afternoon. As I was walking through the house, I found the drywall contractor finishing his work in what would be the dining room. He had done a good job, except for one thing: the insulation contractor hadn’t insulated the walls yet.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

“I’m doing what I’m paid to do: putting up drywall.”

“But the insulation isn’t in the walls yet!” I complained.

“That’s not my problem,” he replied. “I get paid to do the drywall.”

This contractor measured his work by how well he did on the drywall, whether the job was done on time, and whether he made a profit. In doing his work, he did not consider how his work fit into the general plans of the house; he didn’t care if the walls were insulated or not.

Similarly, in high-tech companies, design engineers traditionally measure their work by the elegance of their designs, whether a new product design includes all the latest technological advances. Your product designs can win industry awards, but if a product isn’t what the customer wants, if it’s packed with features that drive up costs but few customers will ever use, the design exercise makes little sense.

“Functional myopia” exists when an organization, or individual, becomes so focused on its local or group goals and standards that it loses sight of the overall goals of the business. No individual or group is exempt from this syndrome, from the petty cash clerk to the legal department, engineering manager, salesperson, and drywall contractor. I am sure that you have experienced and been frustrated by the functional myopia of many people and groups that you deal with on a daily basis in your personal and professional life.

Functional myopia can undermine any and all company transformation or renewal efforts. At best, it can set back progress toward company goals. In the worst case, those goals may not be achieved at all. If I hadn’t visited the construction site that day, I wouldn’t have known something was wrong until I realized how cold the dining room was during the winter. In the case of the high-tech manufacturer, the myopia of design engineers often results in products that customers don’t want or that are priced so high that they are not competitive in the marketplace. Functional myopia can subvert the best laid plans of any organism. For example:

* Purchasing, in seeking the lowest-cost supplier (its traditional measure of performance), may overlook product quality or delivery timeliness, thus frustrating the company’s attempts to improve quality or reduce cost. time to market.

* The materials manager in a factory can stockpile a key material so that it is always available locally, even while another of the company’s factories has to close for several weeks due to shortages of that material.

* The legal department can delay a key industry alliance for months, arguing with the other company over minor and inconsequential wording changes in the association agreement.

* The training department can stall sales of a new product by adhering so closely to its standards for course development that training is not available on the new product until six months after it is ready to ship.

The list of ways functional myopia can harm organizations is endless. But if everyone works for the same company, how does functional myopia occur?

The roots of functional myopia

Startups do not suffer from functional myopia. In a start-up, there is a small group of entrepreneurs constantly working together with a common purpose: to develop that first product or service and sell it. But as the startup grows, the small initial group expands, and with that expansion comes functional specialization. As each function expands, departments get larger and the focus tends to narrow to the work of the department, and employees often lose sight of the overall goals of the company. Research, design, manufacturing, marketing, and service become sequential activities, with each group waiting for the previous group to finish its work before passing it on. Functional myopia stems from three basic roots:

CULTURAL ROOTS: Cultural issues, which relate to norms of behavior for the corporation as a whole and for individual functions and organizations within the company, can take many forms. They can appear as stereotypes of various roles, some attributable to long-standing rivalries, others to real differences in status that are reflected in pay scales and perks, such as office size. Each profession has its own standards by which it measures the quality of its work. At the simplest level, one could say that design engineers are measured by the elegance and performance of their designs, manufacturing by how cheaply a product can be made, service engineers by the “mean time to repair.” “, people who buy to get the lowest prices. of suppliers, etc. These goals are often in conflict with each other. For example, a design feature may increase performance but also increase manufacturing costs, or a certain manufacturing method may reduce production costs but increase service costs. The resolution of such conflicts cannot always be done on the basis of objective technical criteria. More often, it is a political process, where politics is defined as “the art of the possible”.

ORGANIZATIONAL ROOTS: Many manufacturing companies have grown up as hierarchies in which each function has its own department, and communications between the functions take place primarily at the top of the respective departments: the vice presidents of engineering and manufacturing may meet regularly to discuss problems. , but managers and the lowest individual contributors in their groups don’t often consult. These are commonly called “stovepipe” organizations. Because the members of each organization can’t see past their respective smokestacks, their focus is local or myopic. To be successful, they must adhere to the standards and practices of their respective roles. Even if they thought it would be beneficial to work more closely with their counterparts in other functions, the boundaries of their respective fireplaces prevent this from happening: “Just do your own job and let the other department worry about theirs.”

MANAGEMENT ROOTS: Because companies are people-achievement oriented, there may actually be disincentives for most employees to remove their functional blinders. “If my salary and performance reviews are based on my own organization’s standards and goals, I’d better make sure I’m following the rules.” Therefore, trying to cooperate between functions or organizations can result in a poorer performance evaluation, even if it is better for the overall objectives of the company.

Correction of functional myopia

Given the root causes of functional myopia, how can organizations overcome these barriers to get employees at all levels to work together, consider the big picture, and optimize overall business results, rather than individual functional goals? Functional myopia can be overcome only by addressing the three root causes. To achieve this, a three-pronged approach is required:

• EDUCATION AND TRAINING programs can help overcome cultural barriers and develop cross-functional teamwork. A good place to start is by mapping business processes to understand how the work of each group is codependent on the work of other groups.
• Changes to ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN can help eliminate loopholes and open lines of communication between functions and groups.
• Changes to ADMINISTRATIVE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES to tie individual actions and rewards more closely to overall company goals can help people focus more on helping the company as a whole achieve its goals.

To correct functional myopia, organizations need to examine their economic value chains, both internal and external, to maximize overall productivity and profitability. When functions operate only to maximize their local goals, they lose sight of the big picture and often make decisions that cannot be justified in the larger context.

The role of myopia correction in leadership development

In his book, The Leadership Pipeline , Ram Charan and his coauthors describe a series of transitions, from individual contributor to manager of individual contributors, then manager of managers, all the way to CEO. To be successful in each of these transitions, the employee must broaden his or her vision, overcoming functional myopia to see the bigger picture. At each higher level of the organization, the employee must consider a broader range of employees and roles to be successful.

The LDP design described in my book, Feeding your leadership pipeline, fosters collaboration across functions, in classes and on action learning projects, and through educational sessions helps participants broaden their views on the organization and their understanding of the business. It is through this combination of activities that the LDP model helps participants to overcome their functional myopia.