I’ve been thinking this week about the things that hold silos in place within organizations. In my consulting and coaching practices, I’m often asked to help an organization remove silos and become more integrated, connected, and resilient. In many of these cases, positional leaders share that they need their leadership team to think about the organization as a whole first and their own department second. This can be a challenging mind shift, as leaders perceive certain costs when asked to do what’s best for the organization in the long term. It could mean they have to give up something that is beneficial to the group they’re currently responsible for.
Systems thinking and silos
There’s a phrase in systems thinking that goes something like this:
The more you serve the whole organization (the system), the less you serve the part of the organization. The more you prioritize a part of the organization, the less you serve the long-term interests of the whole organization.
The conflict I’m describing here is part of the damage that happens when we prioritize profits and performance over the long-term health of our employees, our communities, and our planet. Leaders tend to “protect their own” and may struggle to share resources with the entire organization. Evidence has shown that integrated organizations serve customers, clients, and our communities much better. Yet, in our current silo mentality, we still compete for resources. We make decisions for our departments and divisions that work against the interests of the larger organization.
What holds silos in place
To remove silos we have to understand the human dynamics behind the silo mentality.
Silos stand in the way when we attempt to develop resilient systems that serve future generations. Removing silos requires insight into why leaders are holding onto them so fiercely. When I work with clients to develop less siloed, more integrated organizations, I often see roadblocks based on four main motivations:
- Attraction. You can’t force this shift. If the larger purpose of the entire organization isn’t strong enough to attract leaders to the “whole,” people won’t support it. Perhaps there are experiences, for example, that diminish the trust and quality of the relationships within the senior leadership team. In this case, it can be incredibly challenging to achieve a culture shift toward a more integrated organization. Perhaps the annual budgeting process, or the staff review system, is a zero-sum game. Understandably, this type of competition will also detract from the shift to the whole.
- Comfort. Leaders are often responsible for departments comprised of people who care mostly about their own work or role. People in these teams speak the same “language” and value similar behaviors. The desired comfort zone is within their team. They’ll protect the needs of the team over the whole organization every time.
- Identity. Silos are shaped by function. Each has a unique identity that often isn’t fully understood by the larger organization. The department’s identity is shaped by the skills and function of the people who work within it, and it may not have much overlap with other groups outside of its boundaries. Silos are held in place to help reinforce the identity of the people who work there.
- Safety. Senior leaders have control over the work within their teams. They know their expertise, and it’s safer to lead from that place than with the whole organization in mind. They find more security leading from something that is known, rather than something that requires a certain give-and-take to support the whole organization.
Creating a compelling whole
In his classic book The Fifth Discipline, author and leadership guru Peter Senge writes about the “tragedy of the commons.” This concept was first described by scientists and economists as a problem when individuals consume resources at the expense of society. Senge extended it to organizations, noting that systems encounter this problem when everyone is so focused on their slice of the pie that individual or divisional interests are prioritized over the needs of the whole. When this happens, the “commons” collapses. When the commons collapses, the entire organization fails.
We have to avoid this collapse. Now that we understand the human dynamics behind silos, we have to find a compelling reason that will convince senior leaders to prioritize the whole organization.
Working for the whole organization requires trust and a desire to work together for a common purpose despite differences in function and discipline. We have to pursue another kind of diversity in an organization, one at the leadership level.
To help sustain a shift to the whole, we must build trusting relationships that revolve around a compelling vision of the whole, one that supports and encourages the people and communities our organization is meant to serve.
