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The
Problem or What's the Big Deal?
As an
organizational consultant I frequently ask leaders to share with me their
biggest problem. This year, in 2003, I have asked that question of leaders
of high tech companies, health care organizations, energy companies, governmental
agencies, and even faith-based organizations. The most frequent problem
reported has been an over-competitiveness and lack of teamwork across
the departments and functions inside their organization. In one company
two department leaders had gotten into a yelling match in front of their
subordinates and outside guests!
The phenomena of internal competition between departments inside organizations
has been described as "empire building" or "silo building". The description
of a silo is 'a tall, 20 foot or greater, sealed-off cylinder generally
used for storing grain.' Silo behavior often occurs between the leaders
and workers of one department towards the leaders and workers from other
departments when:
» Department information and knowledge are sealed off from other
departments;
» Workers do not talk to people outside their department;
» The department does not offer to help or share resources with
other parts of the organization;
» Department only focuses on achieving their work goals even at
the detriment of other work units and the organization as a whole.
Here is an example of the lack of coordination that supports organizational
goals. Engineers design new products that the marketing group cannot sell
and the manufacturing group cannot build. Another typical damaging silo
behavior is when one business unit of an organization has discovered new
work processes that would help the other business units, and they keep
them a secret.
Organizational synergy suffers when cross-departmental competitiveness
predominates. Synergy is when the work performance of two different departments
produces a larger result that the simple addition of the two efforts together.
Organizational synergy is often represented by the equation "1+1= 3".
One executive this year explained to me how appalling the cross-functional
competitiveness was in his organization by saying, "Here in our organization
synergy is 1-1=0.
Employees efforts are canceling each other out and we are going nowhere."
Today in 2003 I see many organizations where synergy is 1-1 = 0, and they
are going nowhere. The harder people work the more they cancel each other
out.
Major Contributing Factors or What's Going On Here?
In this article I will describe major contributing factors for the increase
in silo behavior. One of the most influential behavioral scientists and
theorists in the twentieth century was Murray Bowen. Bowen's unique approach
was to synthesize knowledge across the natural sciences (biology, neurophysiology,
neurochemistry, comparative biology, and others with the behavioral sciences
psychiatry, psychology, and sociology). Bowen thought that the hard sciences
could help support the discovery of new truths in behavioral science.
One key principle derived from the Bowen emotional systems theory is that
when there is stress or threats on the organization from the outside then
there is an increase in emotional acting-out behaviors on the inside of
the organization. One of the most frequent emotional patterns is for two
or more people to agree with each other that a third person or outside
department is the cause of their problems. Bowen called emotional patterns
like this "triangles" because they involved at least two people (could
be more though) on the inside, siding together against an outside third
party. The key principle is that when an organization's survival is threatened
from the outside without anyone's awareness, people inside the organization
increase their triangling behavior. Triangling behavior includes increased
competitiveness and increased silo behavior.
The fact that destructive internal competition is influenced by events
occurring outside the organization is a paradox. Most organizational consultants
and leaders would first try to solve the silo problem by only looking
inside the organization at the competitive departments themselves.
Together as we look at both 2002 and 2003, what do we see that is happening
in the economy and society outside of business, government and faith-based
organizations? The US economy has had the longest slow-down in economic
growth in thirty years. Profitability of the Fortune 500 companies decreased
66% in 2002 after a similar huge decrease in 2001. Government agencies
and faith-based organizations have experienced corresponding decreases
in revenues to support even basic operations.
Societal forces have been even more tumultuous with continual dissension
between the US and its major allies on when and whether to attack Iraq;
the eventual war; the initial uncertainty about biological and chemical
weapons being used against the US and other nations, and the current aftermath
of proposed economic tariffs and embargoes throughout the world. The uncertain,
and highly variable world economy and changing international relationships
(read roller coaster) have provided potential threats to the growth and
survival of most organizations.
"Threats to Organizational Survival" —› "Internal Organizational
Stress" —› "Increased Silos"
Many organizational leaders believe that conflict management is the solution.
They want me to tell the competing departmental leaders to "cut it out"
believing that this will take care of the problem. These same leaders
are not able to see the above contributing factor and the strategic role
they must perform to change this silo dynamic.
To Be Continued...
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