How to build your downfall

There’s a reason the blue whale is the largest living thing on the planet and the amoeba isn’t. Without structure, nothing can grow.

So, having distinct functions and departments and buildings and hierarchies and market segments and everything else that gives an organisation structure is all good, right? Well, yes, but only up to a point - a very small, tiny, miniscule point beyond which all that separation quickly becomes toxic. Here’s why:

What’s the issue?

1. In organisations, with structure comes the risk that boundaries between teams become silos, which facilitate resistance, foster distrust, and fabricate gossip and rumour.
2. The less we know about what goes on in other teams, the less we trust them, so the more we turn our backs on them, so the less we know. That vicious vacuum of logic can throw up a wall faster than a master bricklayer.
3. Silos prevent the flow of ideas, communications and the migration of people around the organisation, truncating synergies and economies of scale. In short, they’re a really effective way to tank productivity.
4. Worse than that, teams either side of the silo actively compete against each other, for resources, recognition, promotions and political gain. And this they can sometimes do much more effectively than the real competition can because they have insider knowledge on each other.
5. The only things that grow in a culture of silos are silos. You’re paying your own people to build your downfall.

Activities to consider

1. A team can be defined as people doing different things towards a common objective. Different teams have different strengths, different knowledge, different local goals. They should form an alloy.
   
   But while marketing want to up the price to position the new product as a premium brand, sales want to drop it to sell more units. Finance, who (according to Manufacturing) must be smoking something funny because they want the Supply Chain to promise a shorter lead time in order to compress the cash-to-cash cycle. And everyone is united against HR for pointing out the uncomfortable truth that, contrary to common perception, new hires to support this new product cannot be instantaneously produced by rubbing a magic lamp.
2. Silos don’t need negative action in order to exist. They just need a lack of positive action to pull everyone together. That’s why you need the unifying likes of a vision, a purpose, common values, a few shared rallying KPIs, town hall comms etc. The tools are there and everyone knows them. All you have to do is remember that silos flourish in a vacuum of trust and knowledge.
3. Think about boundaries the other way round. See them not as barriers that separate people, but as places where people congregate to meet. Where is the overlap between sales and marketing? Where are there points of conflict that need to be discussed and resolved? Good fences good neighbours make (as Yoda would have put it).
4. Remember that, like fear, anxiety and olive oil, silos in small amounts can be healthy. Those walls give people a sense of belonging, a place of safety and familiarity, and they help direct the allocation of resources and responsibilities to the right recipients. But those walls must be kept in check; high enough to provide strength, low enough for people to communicate across and even to leap gazelle-like across for e.g. cross-functional projects.

Try this

As you go about your day, do a silo assessment. What collaboration isn’t happening? What left hand-right hand dysfunctions do you witness? Why is that? What do you imagine the organisation could achieve if you were all joined up? And is that gap in productivity worth doing something about?

At HPC, we developed Adaptability Based Leadership with the express purpose of raising productivity through more engaged, better led staff. If that approach resonates, contact me and let’s get you started on the next phase of your journey towards mastering leadership.