Compartmentalization

You and your team must do the best job they can. You cannot do everyone else's job. If everyone did a good job at their own tasks, the company would succeed. So what do you if someone or some team in the company is not doing what needs to be done?

Obviously you must try and determine how big an issue it is for the company. If the company will absolutely fail then speak up loudly. Otherwise it enters an interesting realm. Do you let mistakes happen? Do you try to do everything? How do you provide input? How far do you go?

I will admit that I have parted ways with companies over this very issue. I have a strong belief in doing my job well and have my team do its job well. I believe I can provide input to other teams but they have to make their own way. I do not believe I or my team could or should try to do other team's jobs. Sometimes this will result in failures (again temper this by the scope of the item) and it is ok. Sometimes failures result in fixing problems at a more fundamental level.

One metaphor is baseball. If some player is doing a poor job, another player cannot do their job because that will cause failure in their position. While some player's jobs overlap, it would be hard and confusing and ultimately cause failure. The manager must replace or train poor players to be effective and successful. Companies are the same way. Each team must do their job. A manager must train or replace unsuccessful people and teams. Do not expect another team to drive or cover for a poor performing team and not impact the original team's responsibilities.

This comes down to clear responsibilities and accountability. Make it clear who owns what tasks. Hold them accountable. Do not reward others for overrunning a team that is not successful without direction to do so. But make sure there are opportunities for anyone to bring issues to light on anything and create mechanisms to follow up on issues.

Make sure there is a single owner for cross-group projects. Hold them accountable.

If everyone is successful on their projects, your company will be successful.

More later ...