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Bruce is dedicated helping managers become more strategic; get people out of silos and working with trust and cooperation; and develop leadership throughout the organisation. For you it's about reducing bureaucracy, opening communication and releasing energy in under-performing managers, staff and processes.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Why Are Silos So Dangerous?


Self-sustaining systems are more resilient and stable than centrally controlled systems. Just think of the USSR. They are more stable because they are constantly learning, flexible, flat, fast and highly collaborative. They are open, adaptive networks responding actively and quickly to changes in their environment.


An organisation (Company, Council, or Ministry) is a system; and for it to work in a self-sustaining (emergent) way it needs to be a system. If it is split up into segments or reorganised into silos it can’t behave like a system because it’s no longer a system. The individual parts (Marketing, Production, Policy, Corporate Services) might in some ways work like a system; but, each will emerge towards behaviours that are favourable to itself rather than to the whole organisation, each going off in their own direction. This is the key reason why silos are so dangerous.

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