Opinion | Silo Deconstruction Underway

Talk to veterans in the risk management field — the leaders, that is — and you have a good chance of hearing about the dangers of silos.

If a given coterie within an organization is creating its own separate culture and shielding that culture from upper management or from other coworkers, they’ve created a silo.

Good, active managers delight in blowing up silos, because they know that it is only through transparency, collaboration and meaningful, committed teamwork that success is achieved.

Workplace silo destruction is risk management, straight up. Willful silo construction within a team is duplicitous. You can’t be a collaborator and a silo builder. You’re either one or the other. There really is no other way, if you’re going to be moral in how you achieve success.

Yes, I think morality is important, and it applies not simply to our personal lives and our spiritual beliefs, but it applies to how we conduct ourselves in the workplace.

Stories are beginning to emerge in mainstream news outlets in which experts are pointing to the degrading effect the widespread use of email is having on the mental health of those of us who work for a living. Email and communication channels like Teams and Slack are alluring and advance some forms of efficiency.

But they are also the bricks from which silos are built.

Create a new channel and you’ve laid the foundation for a new silo. I think that’s why email is driving people crazy. It’s too incomplete, too inadequate for someone who wants, sincerely, to have meaningful communication.

See a silo? Blow it up. You’ll be glad you did. &