Can we ever get rid of silos?

Here’s a fun fact: Machiavelli actually predicted business silos in 1513, and you can argue silo thinking has been normative since.

You probably don’t need a definition. But in case you do: marketing only really cares about marketing and distrusts sales and IT. Operations loves operations language and people, but won’t collaborate with HR.

There are two basic arguments you can take around silo thinking:

1. It’s the normal way of things and companies are still making money, so who cares?
2. It’s damaging to business.

Thought leaders tend to use (2) and mention the word “transparency” a lot. Transparency is definitely important to business IMHO, but it’s hard to ignore (1). Silo thinking is everywhere and companies are still claiming their 18% growth figures.

So is it really that big a problem?

Not really, because …

… it’s comforting to the human brain to know who you report to and who’s “got your back.” That’s what silos provide. It’s essentially just security over your role and team. Know why that’s good? Because job role is often pretty unclear.

Plus, as somewhat noted in this recent HBR article, we’re all tribal in some way. That’s how we evolved, right? We’re probably never…