Can You Make The Complex Simple: Part IV

Getting From Silos to Connections: Simple?

When last spotted, we were lamenting the Silo phenomenon. In the spirit of the Complex/Simple series, I noted that Silos can present what seems like a simple solution--or maybe reaction--to the real and perceived vagaries of power and politics in organizations.

Why do Silos seem simpler than connecting across the organization for the greater good?

Have a look at these images:

Forget the power stuff for a minute. Those silos have the allure of a nice, neat, safe, cozy refuge. 

Who would want to leave that warm, comfy silo for the unpredictability of all those connections outside?

And the messiness of the relationships that go with them.

Besides, look at how many people are out there. It's overwhelming--and you don't know half of those people. But you do know, intuitively, that the most effective thing to do is to be connected.

Why?

Let's see.

1. We get things done in organizations because we know who to go to when, and that we trust:

a. their information.

b. their ability to get it done.

2. We trust them because we've had some successful experience with them.

3. We didn't know that we could trust them until we had a relationship that led to successful experiences.

4. Somehow, some way, we got connected with them to start the whole thing going.

You Have To Start Somewhere--And You Already Know How

We already have all of the tools that we need to do this. And we've mastered them.

This may seem simple. It is.

1. Who might need information that you have? Who might have information that you need?

Start with a single connection outside of your group.

2. Watch this magic. My fingers will never leave my hands.

Least threatening: send an email giving or asking for something mutually relevant.

Caution: You need to invest energy in the tone of the email so the intent isn't misunderstood.

3. Call the person on the phone.

How quaint. We can't go to the supermarket or the gym without being "in touch"--why not give the same consideration to a colleague in another silo? Who knows, you might start a good working relationship  that leads to some good results. Maybe you'll be known as "the person who built doors into the silos with only a telephone and an inner-office directory."

Upside: You communicate and hear nuance and tone in real time. You can adjust accordingly.

Caution: You might discover that you like working with Phyllis in Accounting, despite what Paul in Purchasing thinks of her.

4. Drum roll, please: Face-to-Face conversation.

Look how short the connecting line is here. The reason is simple: being with someone shortens the communication distance and boosts the chances for understanding. Or at worst, an amiable understanding about where the different approaches in a project might be. Which then leads to more conversation about how to unify or integrate those.

Increased caution: You might not only like working with Phyllis in Accounting, you might actually like her.

Your challenge

If you're in a place that values hierarchy and silos to the exclusion of working relationships across the organization, you already know it.

What to do?

Someone has to go first. Really. It's like dating. You may be afraid of rejection but one thing is for sure: if you don't reach out, you will spend Friday evening in the comfort of your living room silo watching re-runs and eating nachos.

Silos create re-reruns. How?

Since they are focused inward, the same scenarios get played out day after day. There can't be much of anything new.  Nothing changes except the intensity of wishing that "somehow things were better."

I understand the reality of large organizations very well. I've worked in them, consult to them, and I've left some (in both capacities) because it was so difficult to reach out to the right person to get something done.

But I never changed my situation by accepting it. And I suggest the same for you.

Everyone talks about leadership and personal leadership. This is one area where you have the ability to start something different and lead.

If you find out that it's so dangerous that your employment is in jeopardy, you are still one-up on the person who tells you that your employment is in jeopardy.

How?

You've made new connections. Who knows where that might take you if you decide to leave the silo for a new haystack.

What Do You Think?

Give a shout-out with your own suggestions or your favorite silo/connector stories. You can bet that there is someone needing encouragement or a new idea right now.

See what three other managerial mavens have to say about leadership, management, and business issues. Visit Jim at Managing Leadership, Shane at Zoomstart, and Wally at Three Star Leadership. You can benefit from their experience and their thinking by tracking their comments throughout the series. Many thanks!

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Comments

[Brian]

Great Blog. Thanks! Without an efficient software infrastructure, we could not have coped with the expansion of the past years. Previously, financial accounting and retail were accommodated by stand-alone applications. A custom interface supported communication between the two applications, which meant that data had to be captured twice or imported a second time.
We realized that at some point in the near future, this type of data handling and storage would no longer support our expanding business and would render the system too inflexible to support the expanding number of product variants. This led to the decision to implement a new solution that could handle everything – now and in the future.
We are in San Diego and were paired up with a company called Tryarc (www.tryarc.com) in Los Angeles. They are a premier SAP business partner. While our first impression was SAP is too much for what we need, Tryarc turned us onto the SAP solution for small and midsize enterprises; it's called SAP Business One. A subsequent presentation of the product had us convinced. SAP Business One was implemented in just a matter of weeks – in part because the standard functions of SAP Business One matched 95% of our business processes. We implemented an interface to our Web shop using SAP Business One Software Development Kit, enabling incoming Internet orders to flow automatically into the business software.
Now, all enterprise management functions are accommodated in one system. SAP Business One provides entirely new opportunities. The only alternative would have been to invest considerable sums in additional stand-alone solutions. Our infrastructure made this pointless. In addition to being the more economical solution, SAP Business One is more comprehensive. It plays its part in making the processes in the company much more transparent than before. Purchasing and sales processes used to be separate, manual transactions supported by paper forms that were stored in file cabinets and forwarded by hand when required. Today, when an order is created and confirmed, a delivery note and invoice are generated, giving the warehouse the go-ahead for delivery. In parallel, the transaction is shown as an open item in accounting. If the merchandise is in stock, customers can receive their order immediately.
Finally, each department can access this system and exchange data with the other divisions. The result is a significant improvement in the internal information flow. This is particularly important for an enterprise like ours that covers all of the manufacturing steps – from development and production to sales and technical support. Today, the time between placing an order and delivery averages less than 24 hours. The improvements delivered by SAP Business One lay the groundwork for the continuing growth of our company. For example, we are planning to exchange price and delivery data with its customers via an electronic data interchange interface in the near future.
The enterprise wide system is an investment worth it's weight in gold. We could not be happier with SAP and the people at Tryarc who helped us get up and running.

[Karin H.]

Hi Steve

Simple ;-)

Your 'Why' reasons are my reasons to have joined a business network (BNI, weekly breakfast meetings - very structured). Because you see all members every week, hear every week what they do, have 1-2-1's with most of them - you get to know them, their expertise and you gain 'trust' and knowledge when 'using' their services/products yourself. So next time you need advice or a products you know you don't have to search far - you're not a number, you've become a respected 'client'.
(And I'm not even talking about gaining numerous prospects this way for your own business)

Karin H. (Keep It simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

[Scott M]

Of course, I'm going to play my role as Devil's Advocate.

Just as it is bad to stay isolated within your silo, it is also bad to completely abandon the structure that a silo provides.

I may have contacts with people outside my department. But I must, MUST, limit that interaction. At some point I gotta say "talk to my manager". If I spent all my time managing relationships with everyone in the company, I'd never have any time to get my work done.

There is another advantage to limiting my interaction with others. If it takes a bit of effort to get in touch with me, then I can be sure that the information is important. If someone has to jump through a few hoops to get a task done, then they are more likely to prioritize your tasks. And I've lost track of the number of times I returned a phone call, only to find out that the requestor of information had found it themselves.

Additionally, I have seen conventional management structures erode, and managers neglect their responsibilities, because everyone is so productive 'thinking outside the box' and getting things done without any oversight. Eventually, no one is in control, and things get out of hand. If Bob, Ted, Carol and Alice are all staying connected, but their managers have no idea what the heck is going on, then it's a disaster in the making.

It's all about balance. Keep your silos for control, structure and reliability. But develop cross-departmental relationships when needed (on specific projects or for specific functionality).

[Marie]

True. Connections are strongly recommended in terms of making business. How do we expect to run a team if there is no connection between members?

[Steve Roesler]

Brian,

Sounds as if you found a powerful software solution to your connection issue.

Thanks for stopping by and filling us in on your good experience.

[Steve Roesler]

Hi, Karin,

You just tweaked the thinking here. Although we've been talking about the dynamic of corporate silos, we haven't touched on the fact that sole practitioners and entrepreneurs need to get out and connect with people for professional advice, encouragement, and ideas.

Thanks for sharing the business networking side of things...

[Steve Roesler]

Gee, Scott, I would have been disappointed if you hadn't weighed in in the usual manner:-)

Let's face it: the need for structure is a real one. Without the right amount, businesses of any size wouldn't be very efficient. It's the point at which an inward focus begins to dominate that we start using the word silo instead of structure.

How do we really get managers to recognize that things have become too "ingrown" and it's time to reach out and stay focused and connected with other departments, customers...whatever?

That seems to be the challenge.

As always, thanks!

[Steve Roesler]

Hello, Marie,

Doesn't the idea of staying connected seem like an innately sensible, understandable concept?

I wonder why it isn't an automatic and universal approach to doing business.

Any ideas?

[Nancy]

I agree with connection. It has a lot of benefits which I think is enough for us to consider in our lives.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful post with us.

[Jim Stroup]

I love the discussions fired by these posts.

While my sympathies lie with the sentiments in Steve's post, I have to lend some support to Scott's comments about the beneficial filtering effect of a formal structure.

We will do well to recall as we debate these issues that there are advantages and disadvantages to every prescription we promote, and the ultimate trade-off solution rests more on what a particular company's culture can tolerate than on the idea that there may be a single ideal approach.

I also like Scott's reminder that we need to have structure. His reference to Bob, et al, is a bit alarming - hopefully lack of structure doesn't typically degrade to the level that reference suggests - but the point is on the mark that we need to have traction for process and communication to work from, and that traction is provided by structure aligned to purpose.

I think Steve, though, is not proposing the dilution of structure, but the mitigation of some of its more negative consequences, which we use the term "silo" to describe. The ability to communicate across boundaries makes what goes on inside them more relevant and powerful, rather than increasingly arbitrary and pointless.

And Steve, I love this from your post: "But I never changed my situation by accepting it. And I suggest the same for you." Bravo. We must always fight to be relevant. When we quit, it's all over. It is too easy to rationalize away the impulse to yield to complacency. That's what makes this such a sharp and important bit of advice.

Thanks again!

[Steve Roesler]

Jim,

This is why I really like the conversational nature and intent of blogs. Unlike reading a book where you sit back and go "Whoa, it isn't always that way!", here we can get to the heart of the issue.

Indeed, I'd be the last to suggest the absence of structure. Maybe a better way to characterize the issue is this: "Don't let an emphasis on one's internal structure block the flow of information around your organization--and with customers, etc."

To me, that's what the silo thing is all about. Perhaps the idea of having an open window or an open door in each silo is another way to visualize what we're getting at here.

BTW: After being away and mixing it up in workshops all week, I'm kind of ready for a little cocoon time in my own silo :-)

[Steve Roesler]

Thanks, Nancy,

Hope all is well at the Patent Center.