SILOS - A STRUCTURAL ISSUE?

In my experience the way managers respond to silos is to look for structural solutions. The response is: "These people are in towers. They won't talk to each other. Lets reorganise". In my experience, structure is hardly ever the most important problem nor the place to start.

Silos are usually not structural issues they are usually mental issues. Silos exist because managers have the wrong mental models. They have mental models of:

*Competition rather than cooperation
*Separation rather than connection
*Scarcity rather than abundance
*Short-term rather than long-term
*Ego and power-over rather than teamwork and power-to
*Functions rather than processes 
*Authority rather than responsibility 
*Procedures rather than results.

Most employees have a genuine interest in working well across divisions; because, they feel the daily pain of departmental politics as they are left to fight bloody, unwinnable battles with their colleagues. However; where managers have these mental models, silos will exist no matter how the organisation is structured.