Embracing Silos By Embracing Agile Marketing Values

“Break down the silos” is one of those old go-to's repeated over and over again because it just sounds like the right thing to say. 

But we need silos. The rhetoric of “destroy” and “eradicate” is misguided. Instead, a new call to action for better understanding and embracing silos where they exist should be adopted.   

One simple reason is the fact that, in reality, they will never go away. 

WE NEED SILOS. AND, WIDE ACCESS TO WHAT’S INSIDE

Silos play an important role. 

We need them because they collect and house deep expertise. They provide a home base for “birds of a feather”, an inner sanctum of sorts to talk shop and build off each other.  

They can foster a sense of belonging within the larger machine. They satisfy the need for safety, security, and validity in terms of being with like-minds and fellow subject matter experts. They can also be organic “centers of excellence” (although that is not typically the case.)  

Knowing they exist, the goal must be to ensure the doors are opened wide to let daylight in.  And, even wider to let what's inside come out into the light for all to see.

Silos need not be "us versus them". The better equation is “we”.

MARKETING DOES NOT SPEAK OF CUSTOMERS IN SILOS 

It is quite a contradiction that, as marketers, our outward-looking categorization of customers and prospects reflects positive lingo like “tribes”, “cohorts” and “communities”. 

We don’t refer to external groupings as, or in, “silos”.  

It’s only as we look inward at our corporate peers in this manner that we assign the less-flattering and culturally stigmatizing language across departments, divisions, and teams as “silos”. Others. Them.  

LIBERATE AND DEMOCRATIZE   

It’s not about silos themselves. It's about how we think, behave and interact with what we perceive or identity as silos that is the issue.   

Course correcting will require liberating what is held within them through the air-cover of shifting mindsets beginning with organizational leadership (not easy, but doable).  That is one aspect of business agility that can begin to take hold, from the understanding and practice of sharing and collaboration.   

This is where we start to behave in new and enlightened ways, especially as marketers, applying to perceived silos outside of marketing. And, to the ones inside marketing.

AGILE MARKETING VALUES TO GUIDE NEW BEHAVIORS 

We know that behaviors reflect our values. One of the Agile Marketing manifesto values speaks to “Customer-focused collaboration over silos and hierarchy” as a new jump-off point to modify our previous behaviors. 

This means customer-focused collaboration in two ways. First, with customers directly. Second, about customers together.  

The latter, collaborating about customers together, is not just having silos represented. They must become an integral part of the cross-functional engine that requires fuel and hands on the wheel from multiple sources, equally.  

This is where we demonstrate and put newfound values into practice and demonstrate by doing. Where we walk the talk and reinforce behaviors that act to overcome the silo-driven, hierarchical bias and decision-making that ruled for too long.   

That’s the magic.

MAKING MODERN MARKETING MANAGEMENT WORK

Marketers face a rapidly changing and evolving landscape. Those who have adopted Agile Marketing and its values are evolving with new and better ways to help guide their modern marketing efforts with success.

So, let's not talk of eliminating and eradicating. No silos might mean not having the knowledge and expertise we need.  

The simple effective equation is one that understands inclusiveness and value-based behaviors in action are much better at dealing with what's in front of us with open arms versus closed-minds.   

If we can rally to counteract old ways of thinking and acting, we can liberate and democratize what was once an obstacle and transform it into a critical building block that helps deliver the highest value for our customers and ourselves.

This post originally appeared on the CHANGE MARKETING BLOG

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash