Cross-functional team dynamics require leaders who can be transformational in their ability to communicate compelling missions, goals and objectives for the teams, not just managing by action item lists and project plans (Santa, Ferrer, Bretherton, Hyland, 2010).

The best cross-functional teams then have a level of passionate intensity about them; they see the much greater result they are attempting to accomplish as worth the sacrifices they need to attain them (Feng, Jiang, Fan, Fu, 2010). Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the area of new product development and introduction (NPDI), especially in high tech manufacturing where product lifecycles are so rapid (Boks, Stevels, 2007). In the leading high tech companies including Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others, sustainability engineering, product development engineering, packaging, repackaging and remanufacturing all have their experts on cross-functional teams to share their expertise and insight to make sustainability initiatives accomplishable through better use of internal knowledge...
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