THEORY AND PRACTICE
MIT
Leadership
Center
X-Teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed
Innovation is often described as something that just
degree of external activity, X-teams view such activity as
happens—the appearance of a lightbulb or a bolt from
central to their mission, their mindset, and their modus
the blue. But today’s companies can’t wait around for light-
operandi. “Going outside” is a top priority from day one.
ning to strike. Competition is fierce, and businesses need
So, for example, members of an X-team are selected
to be able to generate, leverage, and sustain innovation.
because they have the necessary content expertise,
Current research suggests that it is possible to create a
culture of innovation through X-teams, teams designed
to pull together external and internal input to give
organizations an infusion of new thinking.
Through extensive research into team performance,
Deborah Ancona, the Seley Distinguished Professor of
Management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and
Faculty Director of the MIT Leadership Center, and Henrik
Bresman, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior
at INSEAD, have found that in large organizations, the
process skills, personality, and motivation to work effectively “on the inside.” Equally important, however, they
are chosen for their ties to other individuals and groups
that can help the team achieve its goals, whether inside
or outside the company.
An X-team’s external activity takes the form of scouting
for new ideas, opportunities, and resources. This might
mean conducting a survey, hiring a consultant, interviewing
customers, spending a day “googling” the competition,
or just having coffee with an old college professor.
critical work of generating new products and services is
Another critical external activity is ambassadorship,
typically done in teams. And yet, their research shows,
meeting with management to gain buy-in, sponsorship,
a team can work well on the inside and still not
and protection from potential internal opponents; to
deliver results.
Too often, most of the thinking about what makes a team
successful remains focused on internal dynamics: how
the team members interact and how they structure their
work. When it comes to the bottom line, “good” teams
often fail.
What is an X-team?
As the “X” implies, an X-team combines and integrates
high levels of external activity with extreme execution
inside the team. While most teams engage in some
acquire funding and other resources; and to keep the
team’s work tightly connected to the company’s strategic
imperatives. Finally, working externally involves task
coordination, engaging with other individuals and groups
inside and outside the company to get feedback, identify
critical resources, and convince or cajole others to help
get the task accomplished.
Internally, “extreme execution” means building a transparent decision-making structure and open communication
systems so that outside ideas and resources can flow in
freely, and the work can keep moving forward.
MIT Leadership Center X-Teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed
X-teams at work
driven innovation at companies as diverse as Microsoft,
An X-team’s external and internal activities go on concur-
BP, Merrill Lynch, CVRD, Procter & Gamble, and
rently, with changing emphases, through flexible phases
Southwest Airlines. Extrapolating from these examples,
that shift with the work requirements. It initially explores
they also provide detailed guidelines for managers who
the environment to figure out what customers want, what
want to set up an X-team, for X-team leaders themselves,
the competition is doing, what top management will
and for senior executives who want to use X-teams as a
support, and where resources can be found. By going
powerful tool to distribute leadership company-wide.
outside from the very beginning, the team establishes
the critical importance of an external focus.
Dozens of company X-teams have been trained through
MIT Sloan executive education with input from the MIT
Acting on the results of its initial exploration, and placing
Leadership Center, with successful results. X-teams from
somewhat greater emphasis on internal activities, the
BP have delivered a variety of breakthroughs, including
team then moves quickly to prototype, test, and modify
new ways to manage the company’s huge oil/gas exploration
an innovative new product or service that will exploit the
projects across the world. At Merrill Lynch, X-teams trained
most promising opportunity. Finally, the team shifts
at the Leadership Center have produced everything from
operating mode again, this time to export the innovation
new interest rate volatility indexes to an entirely new
to the larger organization for full-scale implementation.
and successful distressed equity business. In all, MIT
Sloan and the Leadership Center have created almost
As an X-team moves through these cycles of activity,
a hundred X-teams.
its members move across the team’s core, operational,
and outer-net tiers, changing roles as needed. The team
Making X-teams work can be complicated for senior
also periodically adds and subtracts members as new
management and taxing for team members. But the
connections or expertise is needed. This exchangeable
benefits can outweigh the costs, particularly when the
membership along with such activities as scouting,
goal is innovation. As Margaret Mead once said, “Never
ambassadorship, and task coordination has the added
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens
result of reinforcing the team’s connection to the larger
can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that
organization while simultaneously extending the reach
ever has.”
of the team’s innovative thinking. Thus, at Microsoft,
an X-team not only created a new social networking
product for “netgen” users, but also became the
Contact:
driving force behind a new model for customer-inspired
MIT Leadership Center
software development.
30 Wadsworth Street, E53-420
Cambridge, MA 02142
In other words, X-teams are not only highly successful
at achieving their own tasks, they are also highly
effective agents of change and innovation across the
larger organization.
Creating an X-team
X-teams can be very successful at driving innovation.
They can also be systematically set up, trained, coached,
and replicated.
In X-Teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate,
and Succeed (Harvard Business School Press), Professors
Ancona and Bresman describe in detail how X-teams have
Telephone: 617.253.6222
Facsimile: 617.253.6765
http://mitleadership.mit.edu
Deborah Ancona, Faculty Director
Mary Schaefer, Executive Director