Think One Team, 2nd Edition

part II the think one team™ method

It is both natural and desirable for organisations to separate into smaller units such as divisions, departments and teams. This separation gives focus, specialisation and ownership, which offers the promise of greater efficiency and effectiveness, faster decision making and increased engagement for the people involved.

Unfortunately, this separation into units often comes at an unacceptable cost.

Instead of performance and growth, a ‘silo mentality’ emerges and people and customers see nothing but frustrating blockages that slow and suffocate the organisation.

When our consulting team receive calls from organisations seeking a solution to these concerns they hear comments such as:

• turf fights between functions are damaging the customer experience
• cost overruns on new initiatives are blowing out the budget
• getting a new product to market only happens when a leader rams it through from start to finish
• problems are sitting unclaimed in a stand-off between two divisions
• change is near impossible because the silos block everything.

the silos are not guilty

Not surprisingly, there has been a flood of books and articles encouraging leaders to ‘demolish the silos’ and replace them with a utopia of engaged people working together in one big community. This reeks of a technical solution to an adaptive problem and, unfortunately, it has encouraged many to try some type of ‘destroy the silos’ initiative, only to end up with worse performance due to ...