As corporate governance actors and team players, we are encouraged to avoid working in silos.

A silo is defined as: “A tall cylindrical structure typically used for the storage of bulk material such as grain, cement or other agricultural or industrial products…in metaphorical sense, “silo” is also used in organizational contexts to describe isolated or compartmentalized information, knowledge or departments that do not effectively communicate with each other.”

As I ponder my piece to share with colleagues, I propose to consider both the general and metaphorical definitions of the word “silo” as I attempt to motivate a bigger discussion amongst us with regards how it affects corporate governance practice.

First of all, it is important to recognize that in an organization, individual qualifications, skills, character and attributes are critical success factors for the organization. To take a simplistic approach to how a team works and suggest that all it needs to do to qualify as a team is to work together, may be a recipe for a disjointed performance result that does more harm than good to achievement of the organization’s objectives.

The general definition of silo emphasizes the issue of storage…safe keeping. The purpose for storage is to preserve the contents for future use. This is an important point to note in that the silo is a means towards effective use of the contents elsewhere. There is no intention for the contents to remain in the silo in perpetuity…otherwise the world would have silos as its new surface! Further, that a silo is only a component of a cyclic activity…the bigger picture. In an organization, the team members apply their individual skill and knowledge to a task with a view of contributing to the team objectives.

The process of application of individual effort to a task should not be seen as silo behavior. However, the behavior may crystallize into a silo type behavior if the actor does not progress the effort to a contribution to the team by not effectively communicating the contribution to the team.

Effective communication of efforts to the team breeds collaboration and refinement. This is a demonstration that the silo has served its purpose of storage of knowledge and the individuals have successfully offloaded the contents to the desired destination.

It is imperative to be conscious to interrogating whether in implementing our plans as actors, we align our minds to how we should break the negative tendencies associated with a misapprehended approach to contribution to team effort. Have we clearly defined what the organization expects from individual efforts of actors and teams of actors towards achievement of organizational excellence?

Further I pose the question; Is your organization guilty of silo mentality and if so, what is the plan for reformation? I look forward to hearing from the wealth of knowledge amongst us in this area.

Let’s share!