Social Media and Cultures of Openness and Collaboration

This is an interesting research report by the CIPD on the use of social media in organisations and the implications for cultures of openness and collaboration. It highlights the barriers to increasing openness which I cover in some depth in my new book which will be published in July.

David Ian Willcock
Liberating Potential Ltd.

Collaborating for Results: The Importance of Values

Last year I wrote about what hinders good quality relationships between people and teams in organisations and how to improve them.  This included the role that learning and development practitioners and leaders play in developing effective working relationships. This month I focus on the impact that some fundamental values have on collaboration for results. The latest feature article based on the forthcoming book, Collaborating for Results: Silo Working and Relationships that Work, is now published on The Training Journal website.  This includes links to the previous articles.

David Willcock
Liberating Potential Ltd.

The Costs of Silo Working

Yesterday I submitted the typescript for my book Collaborating for Results: Silo Working and Relationships that Work to Gower who will publish it in the first half of next year.  After a long period of research and writing alongside the day job this milestone has caused me to reflect on my reasons for starting the book.

Throughout my career I have been working to improve relationships between people in organisations and sometimes between separate organisations wanting to work together. Facilitating improved working relationships between organisation silos has been a big part of this. Organisation silos can be like different countries, or even parallel worlds. Even in a single organisation, people in separate divisions or teams can talk a different language and have different work cultures that they each find difficult to understand and relate to. Add to that the multitude of different individual personality traits, behaviours and styles and it is easy to see why busy people may not take the trouble to involve others on a wider basis when they feel they can do a job quicker themselves.

That is not to say that silos cannot be helpful, for example where people need to focus on targets or get specialist results. Organisation structures after all are meant to be helpful. They group specialists and functions into learning communities, focus people on results and orientate them as to who does what and where. However, where people identify too much with the particular space they occupy and boundaries become rigid and impervious then problems can and do occur. Where cooperation and collaboration is needed and there are barriers to achieving this, the cost to the organisation can be very high.  Some of the costs include a lack of shared learning and innovation, delays in getting work done, unproductive conflict, stress and significant financial costs due to programme failures.

There are many ways in use today to increase collaboration in organisations, yet somehow they don’t always succeed, become sustainable or inform the learning of others who inevitably share the same fate. There are numerous examples in organisations and in the public domain of breakdowns that occur within and between organisations and the cost this can bring about.

On Wednesday 20 April 2011 Sony’s PlayStation Network, with around 77 million users, was hacked into by criminals who stole personal information. A report in The Guardian newspaper on 27 April  explained that:

Since Stringer’s appointment in March 2005 he has struggled to break the company out of its “silo” organisation that has prevented coordination between different divisions.

The impact of the security breach on Sony’s share price and reputation are well known and data protection law suits were also filed.

This happened 21 years after the publication of Peter Senge’s seminal work on the learning organisation, The Fifth Discipline (Senge 1992), that explained how organisations are like systems and people and events are interconnected. It also happened 17 years after the publication of Will Schutz’s The Human Element (Schutz 1994), a book outlining his teachings over 30 years that point towards personal rigidity and defensiveness as the main causes of ineffective teams. Fitjof Capra (2003) and Margaret Wheatley (1992, 2007) have expertly translated the discoveries in the scientific and philosophical fields into the organisation arena, explaining the symbiotic and co-created world we live in. We also live in an age where we are all a lot more aware of the interconnectedness between people and events on a global level. Witness the impact of the recent financial crisis across the world.

Despite this awareness and all the approaches and tools available — and there are many — something seems to be missing. As one board director who contributed to the research pointed out: ‘In most companies silos haven’t changed, yet everything else has. Why not this?’

Writing this book was for me a journey to better understand how we can reduce the downside of silo working and achieve greater collaboration within and between organisations. It evolved over the period of research and writing as I sought to answer the questions:

• Do we really know why silos develop?
• Why are they so difficult to break down?
• Why has silo working been so prevalent for so long?
• Why is it so difficult to get joined-up thinking and integrated working in a team and even more so across an organisation?
• What influence does the senior leadership team have over this phenomenon?
• What are the best ways to approach this problem — at individual, team and organisation levels?

One thing that became clear to me, perhaps not surprisingly, is the complexity of the issue. Not surprising because people and organisations are complex. One contributor to the research even suggested that there isn’t a problem with ‘silo working’, just complexity. Recognising the complexity, I continued with the belief that some ‘joined up’ thinking could emerge that would build on current knowledge and practice, challenge existing approaches and point towards some more sustainable ways of tackling the problem.

My thanks go to everyone who helped me with the project. I’m now looking forward to the next phase in the publication process and sharing more learning and insights with you along the way.

David Willcock

Liberating Potential Ltd.

Silo working and self-centredness

In this blog  Stephan Harding of Schumacher College writes about what it means to be human and the problem of self-centredness in modern civilisation.   In my upcoming book “Collaborating for Results: Silo working and Relationships that Work” I write about the role that ego plays in developing silo working in organisations.  Egocentric or self-interested behaviour, often compounded by aspects of personality and interpersonal capability, creates an imbalance in relationships.  In plain speaking, people pursue their own needs without regard for others or the wider needs of the organisation.  Stephan shows how an over adherence to this attitude in life creates imbalance in relationships beyond organisation boundaries.
David Willcock
Liberating Potential Ltd.

Collaborating for results

A well known business publisher wants to publish my book in hardback and I will hopefully be signing the contract next week. The working title is now “Collaborating for Results: Silo working and how to develop relationships that work.” One implication is that publication will be delayed until next year, but I think it will be worth the wait. A second feature article on the book is now available on the Training Journal website. This article focuses on the important role that leaders have in developing collaboration for results.

David Willcock
Director/Consultant
Liberating Potential Ltd.

Collaborate for results

This blog is dedicated to the subject of my upcoming book:  “Silo Working and how to Collaborate for Results”.  A feature article about the book is currently on the Training Journal website.

The book will help you find out what hinders good quality relationships between people and teams in organisations and how to collaborate for results.

Over the coming weeks I will publish extracts from the book here.  The book is currently being edited and is due for publication this year.  For further information follow this blog, follow me on Twitter (@davidwillcock) and visit the Liberating Potential website.

David Willcock
Director/Consultant
Liberating Potential Ltd.