[eru]

I agree about culture being a big part. Though no clue how you can improve that in your team as a manager?

I worked for a company where my team was fine, and individual people from other teams seemed perfectly smart and capable when talking to them, but looking at their team's output, they might as well have been idiots. I image for many of them, if they had worked at a more functional organization like Google, they would have done good work. (Even if not to the standards that Google has. But certainly better than at their then current employer.)

[lostcolony]

As a manager, the big ones are making sure that everyone understands what is going on, and feels responsible for it. So if you see a silo developing, you intentionally break it, and explain to the team why you're asking someone who knows nothing about a particular domain to own the task (and also call on the silo to make themselves available to help teach the domain and answer questions and such). It means that task will take longer, but the long term health and effectiveness of the team will be increased.

That also includes manager context; ideally, even things that a manager usually does, the team starts stepping up to do. So working with product to define requirements? Manager should include the team with that and look to have them start taking ownership of it over time. Prioritization? Team sport, until it becomes as natural as breathing, and people are better able to prioritize their own time as emergents come in. Etc. This not only helps avoid the -manager- becoming a bottleneck that slows everyone down, but it helps individuals to grow really quickly and feel more empowered.