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As head of training, I've been a team member of a cross-functional teams organized by a pharmaceutical company to address ways to increase the force field effectiveness. At the time the team was organized, the company was exceeding sales targets, however, recognizing that within three years the company would begin to address the loss of patent protection, increased government pricing pressures and generic competition, the President sponsored this team to find ways to be more competitive in a difficult environment. Other members included the heads of BT, HR, OE, Sales, and numerous consultants. The team leader has been a director of online sales in the U.S. who had spent time abroad in the armed forces of the United States.

The leader took the advice of other team members to reach members of national organizations to facilitate their participation and buy-in, as well as involve them in decision making. However, the leadership style of facilitation was not natural to him. In both his military and leadership experience in sales, has played a role in more traditional command and control leadership. He also depended on experience developed for the U.S. sales organization that has been recognized as the most successful organization for the company.

The process went well until the team members and / or representatives of countries have made recommendations that went against the experience of the leader. In these cases it would veto the recommendations either openly or quietly remove their recommendations from the final documents without the agreement of the team members. After this happens several times, team members realized that if they could not convince him of their initial opinions, their contribution would be ignored, even if their recommendations were opposed by the team. The project has begun to lag behind and support the country has decreased. Over time the market changes expected to affect sales began, the project was closer to the introduction of the changes than it was when it started.

Yukl says that "aggregate forms of participation is unlikely to be effective unless the manager has sufficient skill in conflict management, fostering constructive problem solving and address issues of common process that occurs in groups" (p. 112). Or a leader with the skills of facilitative leadership should have been appointed in place of this leader or leadership training before the project began coaching and constructive as the project developed it should have been provided to him. Instead, he was left alone to produce results and is based on the skills that were more appropriate in hierarchical organizations, but was ineffective in a cross cultural cross functional team.

Assuming a role of facilitator of leadership could have helped the team to define its purpose and rules for decision making and the final results, to encourage the generation of ideas, help the team make solid recommendations and take a more neutral in the overall process . The end result would have produced similar recommendations, while maintaining the commitment to the country, and improve implementation .......