10 Things Silo Organizations and Management Will Never Understand

The next time you are cruising at 10,000 feet or roaming around some conference exhibition floor or just trolling the web, think about your company.

I want you to think about how you share information today, and what you would change about it for tomorrow. If you could see yourself through the eyes of your customers as well, even more helpful.

If you find yourself thinking along the ideas below, you may be a silo organization and in that case...

Your organization may profess to "getting social" or "being open" or using collaboration tools or providing everyone access or using the latest version of   but there is more to this discussion.

1. It's in an Email - Most common denominator of collaboration, famously said but many long time email users. A person's email inbox is a huge silo and bottomless pit. Hopefully you are above this level, even if only slightly. Delete is the enemy, guess where your email may have gone at some point.
2. I sent an IM - Whatever system you use, unless you are posting the IM as a status update or message that is open for everyone to see, your IM is another bottomless pit but at least it does Emoticons :-P
3. Everything is on the NAS/Network/Cloud - This is NOT the same equivalent as "everything is in a Notes database or a community or a place or a site". This is a file server which may or may not be indexed for others to find in your chaotic directory structure. Ever ask new employees to find something? Their replies might surprise you. Then again, you may bask in their ignorance and laugh like Cruella DeVille at them.
4. Management doesn't use  - Use what? They drive Porsches or Teslas...do you? Since when do you need to follow management's lead? If you did this you would be using yellow legal pads rather than any computers. Management wants outcomes, bring them something that will help everyone get together and complete tasks properly.
5. Many Clients - But which one should you use? Browsers alone you have 4 common ones on the average desktop which may, or may not, work with your existing solution. Your cocoon is not open for business if you need people to revert to older models. Standards are important.
6. We know what people want - Maybe, maybe not. if you are not talking up, down and outside your organization, how will you know? Anyone can build an app, but if you want one that works outside your organization, how do you get the feedback? How do you store it? How do you analyze it.
7. Where is everyone - The need to have your staff in front of you at the office, all the time, may be helpful, but it also limits production for some people. Cubicles do not stop the loud talkers or speakerphone conference call makers. Open plans provide more interaction of course, but not always more production. If you find you need to grow your empire, you just might be a silo king or queen.
8. Never use your tools - You ask for the tools, you paid for them, but you never believe in them. Do you find yourself always questioning more details, verifying information, harping on some piece of the puzzle, yet still not completed the framework yet? If so, then you need to use new tools. Gone are the monolithic databases and in place you have tools with unlimited analytics sources. One example BuzzSumo 
9. You never see customers - Different from #6 because YOU have to get out and speak to customers. The real people that pay you money today. Do you reach out to them, personally, in some way during the year...if ever? Don't leave it to sales. Don't leave it to marketing. You are the executive, if you are not thanking the customers you have regularly, someone else will. Hint: Many of the clients have some form of social media account, even if it is only Linkedin, you should be their friend. Stop saying it is the other people's jobs.
10. Always eat alone? - If you always find your self eating alone, even when in your own kitchen area or cafeteria either your food smells horrible or you are too far removed from your staff. Get up, get out, buy soda or juice for everyone or at least hang out where they eat. if you have no idea what I am talking about here, never mind, move along.

Extreme? Some of them others just basic ideas which for whatever reason escapes even the most well meaning people.

Think about your daily work habits and reflect on what could be better.

Have we shared ourselves into Silos?

As I look out across my 30 column wide Tweetdeck app it dawned on me that it has started again.

I am pondering when did we get back to this point. Not sure it can be nailed down to one specific inflection point.

Once upon a time there was a monolithic world of business and it was a top down approach of management over employees. Information was on an as need basis or a "pay grade level" basis. However you view it, or heard about it, it existed. It sucked!

But not to everyone, and not so obviously. Many people were happy to go on with their work lives as drones in the corporate world. Some people wanted a better way and nothing really provided a way out.

Along came the PC revolution and networks, people could share information and the work world seemed a little less monolithic. Maybe we were on the cusp of something at that time, maybe we weren't. The hope and promise was there, even if the technology was not quite there. Although for the time it was pretty damn near incredible.

And then we found the commercialized Internet in 95 when it was opened up for us outsiders to become our babysitter, how-to manual, gripe board, chat board, equipment drivers locator and a far cheaper way to stay connected to our friends and the people we love. Unfortunately it also helped us stay connected to work.

Openness was everywhere, and still is, but it came with a price then and now. Join me, login here, register with us, become a member, and more yellow brick roads to what we thought was more sharing and socializing all popped up.

If you didn't mind the mini-silos, you were fine.

I minded then, I still do. Evidently while I am not unique, I represent a smaller percentage, and definitely of Americans, that want to share more with people.  OK, maybe not everything, but still...

On average, 24 percent of the world says they share “most or everything” that they do. But only 15 percent of Americans admitted to sharing nearly everything online. - Mary Meeker, 2013 Internet Trends Report

I am very against silos, in business, in religion, in schools, and in life in general. I may not like, or agree with everyone, but we are all here for each other to work our way through the maze of life.

There is an app for everything and nothing. Probably the most interconnected app for people is Facebook or Twitter. Both provide connections to people and their thoughts but still the people using either app is inconsistent. I have friends who use none of these, one of these or all of these forcing me to monitor many places, if I care enough. In time new shortcut apps popup that help, but in some ways we are breaking into more pieces than we ever did before.

There are niche of niche products, discussions, even zip codes or buildings have the exclusive of exclusive. And for what purpose? So we can be separated and divided further.

You say, "No, you got it all wrong! It's customization, personalization down to every whim you have or search you perform. We live in the ultimate open ended world, not a silo."

I see that side as well.

Really.

I do.

People always had outlets, work, sports, pubs, friends, family, but now everyone else knows about it and likes you more, or less, depending on the things you post and join. Want a new car or house but don't want neighbors to know, good luck keeping it form them if they follow you.

It's all good in the end, let's just be careful out there.

Apathy or Retribution - Silo's Part 3

Continuing on with previous posts about Silos and being an ACE or an AS we now stop to think about some reasons for the middle ground people.

The two extremes, one side uses everything and shares like beer on tap overflowing a glass and the other shares nothing and could care less. They both work in their own way and should be respected for they have made a decision.
Most of the world however, or 95% of it, if I can warp an old statistics class idea, is in the middle. Not committing to do or not to do or even try. Yoda would not be pleased. Mostly they are paralyzed by the fear of retribution should they go up against something or someone they do not believe in or trust. they may also be stuck in the land of apathy, uncaring too much of the information because it does not touch their little world (mini fiefdoms).

So now that you got here, how do you get these people to go to the other side without paying the ferryman?

 In a post from October, I wrote this:

Stop Using the F, S and C words to Explain Connections

What I did not touch on was the need for people to belong and feel connected to others emotionally which is why they may use Facebook or Linkedin. That emotional need does not exist in business for most people. It's their job and unless they are 100% into their job and company the same need isn't there, thus the apathy. And also they rightly presume this may be used against them, thus the retribution.

Now compare this to a person who blogs about the issues within an educational organization who is trying to reach out to people who are affected by the decisions and yet the same people do not want to speak out or comment for fear of retribution by the community at large.

Now how do you as a sales person help your vendor sell their social business solution into a company? We have seen installations get tossed aside because of lack of usage. We have read about solutions that served them well for years to be tossed for something new. We have even seen some people choose to turn off some options because they want to force employees to think differently, the cold turkey method.

Buy-in from employees comes when they see their leadership making the effort and leading the way and showing the benefits to the company which in turn benefits the employees, or it should. Only in this way can you stave off the apathetic and assuage the fear of retribution.
It is not an easy process to accomplish and  it takes time to spread this across, especially if your company has been full of Silos and fiefdoms for some time.

The Accidental Silo Structure

http://www.mabeats.com/

In the Silo's Happen  previous post I started to discuss the Accidental Silo Structure. I can't use the acronym since it will get blocked by some systems, so I will use the term AS.

If you have an AS, what do you do? Do you realize that you look like an AS? Do you think that you look like an Accessible Collaborative Enterprise (ACE)?

How do you know? What can you do to test for which side you are on?

Keeping in mind that some companies are ACE on the inside but AS on the outside and vice versa we need a litmus test for the sales teams to better understand where the customer sits on this spectrum.

As a Sales person, have you looked for these from the outside:

1) Listened to or watched a webinar or conference call between the client and their constituents, be they business patrners, vendors, customers? Have you noticed if they have an open meeting? Do they let you see everyone on the call? Can you chat with anyone or only the presenter?

2) If you read their blogs on their company website, are they up to date, even within 30 days?

3) Do they run a twitter feed that searches on the company name? Do they show they even are active on twitter at all?

4) Can you comment on their blogs without a "waitingfor approval to post your comments" line?

5) Have you noticed if there is anything other than a phone number or email address for connecting with the organization?

None of these individually rule them out, especially #5 which I use as a simple test. Similarly to the Van Halen brown M&M's contract rider, somethings go a long way to tell you about the organization.

Now what about the inside? Not so hard as you might think:

1) What does the company use to disseminate information? Is email still #1?

2) Does the company use a standard Instant Messenger solution? I don't care which one but a company wide solution?

3) If the company runs Jive, Lotus Notes Applications, IBM Quickr places, IBM Connections, Sharepoint or whatever are they actively using it and managing it? Or are there a million silo places inside each that make it seem like a needle in a haystack to find what you want?

4) When you take a meeting with the executive...is it only them in the room with you?

5) If you know the backgroound of management, do they come from organizations that are open and sharing and social or cold, dark and closed?

#5 is not meant as a failure. However, it implies that the people, who may in their own way be open and caring, ACEs actually, have a background from a place that acts like an AS. In other words, they may know better, but their mind says "this is how we did it before".

We need to stop the historical thinking!

You must bring the problems to the executives at their level. Sometimes outsiders provide greater and deeper insight to a company than their own teams. Great leaders want this information and want to see changes made because they may be tired of their "yes" people.

Don't assume anything about your potential clients, but look for the signs, they are staring you in the face. Deal with these before you try to sell your solution and you will look like an ACE too instead of an AS.

Silos Happen? Part 1

http://behindbricks.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/a-new-silo-a-new-obstacle/

Been a while since I posted about the competition. One reason is the competition has changed. It is no longer about this vendor versus that vendor but more insidious. It is now about Silos vs Openness.

In the past I may have painted a picture of a Silo company to look like many things but usually referred to them as Microsoft companies. Usually because Microsoft promoted the individual over the network and as an after thought provided a way to share the data. In contrast to Lotus which from the ground up was about sharing data and has been for over 20 years.

While I may have vented against the Silo companies and the people that thrive on that culture, think an evil pointy haired boss instead of just incompetent, there may be companies that have become Silo organizations purely by accident and have no idea they did it.

I was on a conference call today that sparked a number of questions and one which I am pondering in this post....can you become a Silo organization by accident?

The simple answer is of course, no. Someone or something puts other wheels in motion and before long the car is roaring down the highway with the dog's tongue hanging out the window.

As David Byrne once said, "Well, how did I get here?" This is the question. For if we can figure out this question properly, we can unravel possibly years of bad corporate culture and set you on a course of social enlightenment, beauty and enjoyment.

Most of the Social Media experts of course point out the benefits of a social enterprise. That is easy. They will tell you write a blog, post here, do this do that, but none of this will change a culture, let alone an executives mind set. Examples abound, best practices are in White Papers, but yet it does not hit home because in some cases it happened by accident over time.

To borrow a common idea, if you spent 10,000 hours being a Silo, how many hours will it take to reverse course? And if it was all by accident, now what?

Sales people will spend hours in meetings trying to gauge why an organization needs their product or will try to transform the enterprise but what if they get it wrong or are missing one key point.

Purpose.

No one wants to hear they are wrong or doing something seemingly proper only to find out they have been promoting a closed culture. Look around you at the businesses you frequent, the non-profits you assist, the schools your children attend. You can see the dichotomy and yet if you try to raise this awareness you may be pushed out or ignored. The reason is because management does not like to admit when they made a mistake and worse, if they are not sure how to get out of it, hate the messenger. This isn't about making the executive look bad, although usually their ego's are what makes them feel this way, when in fact they could be appreciative that someone has raised a potential problem of monumental meaning. It is about providing reasonable doubt that the companies efforts may be what is blocking their ability to embrace the cultural shift to openness.

In order to find that purpose again and revisit it, you need to ask some important questions. I suggest starting at the outer, peripheral items and work your way backwards. It is not a top down approach, but putting the executive in their own seat of a situation and having them see and feel the experience in a whole new way while trying to understand what the real purpose is behind the effort.

Walking in someone else's shoes is just the tip of the iceberg.