SPEED IS CURSED BY SILOS

There is no doubt that markets are speeding up. Those organisations that learn how to manage time will do better. The mass market is disappearing, and managers who choose to ignore the implications of a faster market are increasingly being reduced to commodity-like competition.

According to Alvin Toffler, writing in Power Shift: since the end of World War 2 the world has been split into Capitalist and Communist, North and South, however today these old divisions no longer matter nearly as much as a new division: Fast and Slow. He says that historically power has always moved from the slow to the fast whether it was in species, nations or organisations.

Speed in organisations is determined by:
*The speed of transactions
*The speed of decision making
*The speed with which new ideas are created
*How fast ideas are bought to market
*The velocity of capital flows
*The speed which information and knowledge flows through the economic system.
All of these are cursed in an organisation suffering from silos.

They are cursed because people who should be sharing information and helping each other help the customer are fighting each other for influence, power and glory.

Don't let the power of your organisation move to another organisation that has learned the secrets of collaboration, connectedness and cooperation.

HOW SILOS KILL STRATEGY

Organisations may have a first rate strategy; they may even have the skills to execute and yet still fail if the strategy is torpedoed because of silos and lack of trust.

Today the costs of silos are even more costly because the world has entered a global knowledge worker economy that evolves around partnerships and relationships. This includes the ability to establish, grow, extend and repair interpersonal relationships at all levels of the organisation.

Where silos are strong I find infighting occurs to a high level and attention shifts drastically inward, away from issues such as customers and outcomes, toward battles over budgets, titles and responsibility for mistakes.

At the organisational level they separate work teams, departments and divisions. Silos make managers eager to defend their power, hoard capital and talent even when those resources could be better used elsewhere.

They cause people who are supposed to be on the same team to work against each other, paralysing performance. These factions breed office politics and infighting that cause stress and exasperation that ultimately kills productivity and pushes the best people towards the door.

Battles occur between the headquarters and the field office. And between marketing and engineering. And even within engineering, researchers and developers can be at war over who warrants more head count, budget dollars, and recognition for the success of products.

Instead of focussing on the results of the organisation, managers focus on:
1. Their own ego
2. Their status
3. Their teams
4. Their own departments.

As a result all work becomes piecemeal, diffused and unfocussed; in other words the exact opposite of "strategic".

NEW ZEALAND AT THE TOP

Did you know New Zealand is the best country measured by the Social Progress Index? See: http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_what_the_social_progress_index_can_reveal_about_your_country#t-452057

HUMANITY’S LEGACY

I read somewhere that if humanity was to die out tomorrow the only things that would miss us would be lap-dogs and budgies.

What a sad legacy to the world!! 

It maybe a bit harsh but it’s probably not far from the truth.

With all our intelligence, resources and technology, surely we can do better than this.

What would you like humanity’s legacy to be?

SOME COMPANIES ARE RUN LIKE STALIN RAN THE USSR

Some companies are run like Stalin ran the USSR. They are command structures, highly centralised, rigid and tall. They are made up of equally rigid and tall silos called Divisions (how I hate that word - why don't we call them Integrations?). When the environment changes rigid, tall structures are fundamentally unstable... apt to fall over. And, like Russia, when it happens they fall fast.
Other companies are set up like Jefferson set up the USA. The image is completely different from a tower, it is more like a bean bag. It fits itself exactly to the shape of the environment no matter how much it changes. The bits inside are free to move wherever they want and as a result the structure as a whole becomes far more stable and fits minutely into its environment.
HELP. I use the word "Beanbag" to describe the alternative to a tower; do you have a better analogy or description to get this idea across?