Years ago, I attended a workshop "How to present yourself in an elevator pitch" (or so, not the exact title). As I wanted to introduce myself in a knowledge management context and not everybody is familiar with knowledge management, I used an example with organizational silos. Most people recognize the presence of silos in their organizations and know that (usually) communication or exchange between the silos is not ideal. So I used this example in my elevator pitch to explain what knowledge management can do. I don't recall if I used "down organizational silos" (I probably did), but I shouldn't do so, apparently, according to this article, breaking down silos is a myth.
It's an interesting article as it goes against the general thought to eliminate organizational silos. On the contrary, the author argues that silos have important benefits, but we need to connect them effectively. Silos as functional groups are effective, but the issue is that in most organizations silos are disconnected. As a result, information travels too slowly. Instead of a hierarchical organization, we need to think in networks or clusters. Not a matrix but informal links.
The platforms of connections described in the article, are like (small) communities. In the knowledge management area, communities are known to be successful in sharing of information and knowledge, answering questions and helping newcomers up to speed (to mention a few functions). Whatever it is called, network, cluster, community, those informal groups of employees that find each other on a certain topic or issue, help spreading information faster. If they don't form in a natural way, they need to be organized. In the past at BlackBerry, I helped to set up some of these groups. An example was a group ("Tiger team") around one of the most important telecom providers (for example, AT&T, Verizon, Bell) and share information after a large software update, to find out what issues there are and who can help to solve them. I remember at the start, people said they didn't need this, but soon were surprised about what they heard from others. The people who needed to know or had to act were on the call, so it turned out to be an efficient way of sharing information.
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