Breaking down silos to accelerate change
Fall has officially come to Seattle, and with it, our famous grey skies and rainy weather. While in the spring we were “languishing” according to Adam Grant, a recent New York Times opinion piece says we are now “fatigued.”?
?I’ve started coming back to my office, but in-person meetings are still few and far between. And as we pass the 18-month mark on working remotely, I’ve continued to think about what we are missing without regular informal contact with colleagues.??
While the Panorama team has been highly productive during this period, productivity is not the only metric of success.?A recent analysis found that while companies maintained productivity, what they lost was communicating with people outside of their immediate peers, and over time that can lead to a loss of new ideas and innovation.?
Cross-team collaboration is essential to ensure that we continue to learn from each other, to share ideas across programs and projects and to ensure that our structure doesn’t lead to siloed approaches and thinking.?
I’ve been reading a great book by Gillian Tett,?The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers?, that reinforces the importance of breaking down silos to ensure creative thinking and ideas and prevent ossified ways of doing business.?
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Silos don’t just occur within organizations, but are common across sectors and issue areas. Staying in silos is comfortable and easy, but with the growing interconnectedness of the world and issues we face as a society, siloed approaches to problem solving will only get us so far.?
Across our programs, Panorama works with hundreds of partners across multiple issues and sectors, and our ability to share lessons learned and best practices across all of these programs is something we believe in very strongly. By sharing knowledge from one field to another, we can learn from hard-fought victories to accelerate the pace of change.
Do you have any thoughts on best practices on breaking down silos?
Executive Coach for Tech Leaders | Expertise in Executive Leadership, High-Impact Teams & Inclusive Cultures
3 年I've also found that while silo's may not be intentionally built (that is, we're not talking about people protecting their power and turf), they sometimes form naturally simply because teams are usually focused, heads-down, and busy getting work done. Which means that leaders have to be *intentional* about breaking & bridging silo's: 1) having trusted leadership who can see across the organization and truly understand and value the innovation that collaboration brings; 2) fostering behaviors and a culture that drives curiosity, conversation, and collaboration; and 3) having systems and structures that make cross-team work easy and natural. It takes intentional work. And as others commented - it's even more critical and relevant in the current remote / hybrid workplace.
Founder + CEO @ Vibe Coworks | Coworking, Entrepreneurship, Weaver of People
3 年Back in pre-pandemic times, my organization didn’t even recognize that we were working in silos. Until we were forced to send each ream to work out of a coworking space once a week. Suddenly we were surrounded by other working professionals, many of whom were in fields and industries that were complementary to our work. Suddenly, our network expanded exponentially, we were filled with new energy and ideas, and we wound up crafting partnerships that would have taken months (years?) to build had we been working from our office silo of old. Since then, I’ve become an absolute convert to the power of Coworking spaces as part of a “hub and spokes” model for highly effective teams. Now, in a pandemic era, it’s never been more relevant.
Creating value through innovation, collaboration, asking the right questions, and challenging assumptions.
3 年Research shows (including some of my own) that the most innovative teams have high social capital and leadership. Those relationships, network ties, shared values, and leadership foster the trust, sharing, play, and exchange of tacit knowledge which results in real innovation. All of those need proximity.
Entrepreneur Consultant, Mentor and Advisory Roles at Innovation Ecosystem Design Practice - Entrepreneur Consultancy
3 年I completely agree with you, Gabrielle.
Executive Director & CEO, USA for UNHCR. Growing support for refugees, and fighting for everyone’s right to have a home where they find safety and belonging.
3 年I always come back to the notion of incentives... in philanthropy, e.g., if I run Program Area A and you run Program Area B, even if we see connections between the two and want to co-create a project or shared fund, there have to be incentives in the system for trying new work that might take longer and put additional strain on the overall system. In my days of IFI advocacy and pushing for reform (late 90s), one had to incentivize the Manager who had only been rewarded for moving money-- and fast-- to now reward her for taking into consideration the ESG implications of a particular investment. What do you think, Gabrielle Fitzgerald?